


but you are the life i needed all along

by didipickles



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, First Time, Fluff, Hand Jobs, M/M, Navigating relationships, Pining, Television/Movie Star AU, a bit of a slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-06-22 07:46:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19662931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/didipickles/pseuds/didipickles
Summary: David Rose feels trapped in Rose Television, his father's studio, and is desperate to prove that he can succeed on his own. He gets cast in a film outside of the studio and sets out to do something for himself. He had no idea that Hollywood sweetheart Patrick Brewer has been cast opposite him as his love interest.A story of finding yourself, trusting someone else, and being fond as hell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from [futile devices](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MpKP9b_NJQ) by sufjan stevens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is more of a prologue, setting up where david's head is and his relationship to the other major players in the story.

“Okay, I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say,” David said, rubbing his hands over his face and trying not to strangle Alexis.   
  
“Um, yes David? I think I do. You don’t want to be a part of the family anymore because you’re all sad and mopey about Steven Yeun being cast over you!” Alexis scrunched up her face in that same look she gave David when he talked about a bad date, and the urge to strangle her amplified.

“I am _not -_ that’s not the point!” David huffed back, throwing his arms up and then instinctively wrapping them around himself, protecting from whatever assumptions or pity or anger Alexis might throw his way. “I am not leaving the family, I said I need to get outside of this _company_ and try something new!” 

Why was this so hard to understand? His dad had looked at him like David had put a puppy in front of him and then kicked it slowly to death when he brought it up. And for the record, it was _not_ because of the casting. Well, not _exclusively_ because of the casting. David had spent his entire professional life, nearly every single acting job he’d had, inside of Rose Television. It wasn’t like he wanted to cut ties or stop being involved in the studio, but the recent years and the successes of his friends had David panicking about his own abilities. Of course he’d gotten his first job because his dad was the head of the studio; everyone knew that. It didn’t take much talent to deliver six lines in one episode of a show, and David was the right age for the part. But then, he’d gotten another job, and another, and soon directors were seeking him out, but always inside the studio. And here he was, 25 years later, with only three credits that weren’t tied to the studio that bore his family name.

Sometimes, David would be sitting in a chair on a set, watching Alexis buzz around while planning the next big event, seeing the way his mother “coached” the younger actors, following his dad with his eyes as he shook hands and patted backs and smiled. In those moments, David felt something expand in his chest until he could barely breathe with it, overcome with too much feeling. He knew he was lucky. He’d grown up in a world that opened doors for him, and he knew he owed it to his father, who had not grown up in the same world and had to open his own doors. David didn’t know how to explain that he ached to do something apart, but that it had nothing to do with _them_ , and everything to do with proving that he could. He wanted to open his own doors, like Johnny Rose had done at the age of 21. 

But even if he had the words to explain all that to Alexis, she’d still look at him with that stupid face, and boop his nose, and wouldn’t understand. Not Alexis, who’d spent the past years traveling the globe under the guise of publicizing the studio, already learning the world outside of the Rose Television walls and surviving it. Sort of surviving it. David had gotten her out of enough sticky spots to know she couldn’t do it alone. But he wanted to. He needed to.

“Whatever you think the reason is, I already got the job, and I’m doing it,” David said, his arms still wrapped tightly around himself. 

That seemed to stop Alexis in her tracks. “You got the movie?”

“Fuck off with the surprise, yes I got the movie, without anyone’s help,” he retorted, trying not to sound like a gloating toddler and failing. “My first read-through and rehearsal are next week.”

David felt his ears flush when Alexis reached out and booped his nose. “Didn’t Stevie write this movie, though? So you sort of did have help,” she sing-songed, her wrists flailing.

“Fall down a spiral staircase,” David spat, and turned to leave.

Of course Alexis was right. It was hardly the major studio picture David had dreamed of doing as a child, but there was something so comforting about his first real outside project having a level of familiarity in Stevie. He’d met Stevie Budd when they were late teens, starring together on a high school drama that ran for three good seasons, and two off-the-rails seasons. Among all the conceit and drama in their world, Stevie and her nihilistic humor had been a liferaft for David, something so unworldly about how beautiful and cutting she could be. After their show ended, they’d stayed close, attending events together and causing wild speculation in the press. David had watched with pride as Stevie triumphed in her first film, and then turned to writing. Her new project was small, intimate, and exactly the film David would be proud to make on his first venture away from his family. A queer love story that didn’t end in tragedy? Sign David the fuck up.

At least if he failed terribly, the film was small and hopefully wouldn’t get enough press to cause too much damage, and he could always come crawling back to squander out his days at Rose Television.

***

“I’m sorry, what the _actual_ fuck? Nobody told me Patrick fucking Brewer was auditioning for this!” David pulled his phone away from his ear for a moment, hoping Stevie could feel his scorching gaze through the line. Shaking slightly, he put it back and listened to Stevie’s judgmental silence. “Why is he even interested in this project? Isn’t he shooting another big Hollywood romcom in a few months?”   
  
“First of all, thanks for basically saying my work is garbage compared to Hollywood, and second, no, his movie fell through. Something about Alexandra Daddario’s contract, I don’t know.”

David made an annoyed grunt and cast his eyes around his room, trying to remember how to breathe without wheezing. Patrick Brewer, oh god, oh god, this was a bad idea.

“You know I think your stuff is a thousand times better than Hollywood cookie-cutter films, so fuck off. But I thought this was...shit Stevie, I thought this was low-profile! You bring in Patrick Brewer, and suddenly everyone is watching!”

Stevie barked out a laugh. “So my work is better than Hollywood, but you don’t want anyone to see it? David, this is good news, stop being such a dramatic bitch. You’ve had a crush on him forever, now you actually get to work with him.”  
  
David just made a series of unintelligible noises, suddenly having to recalibrate everything he thought this film would mean. He’d assumed he’d be acting opposite another relatively well-known but not mega-famous TV star, maybe an up-and-coming indie actor, but not the king of the romantic comedy. Not the cute, charming, very straight dreamboat whose movies David secretly watched every single time he felt sad or lonely.

He groaned. “Stevie, oh my GOD, we’re going to have to kiss! Like...a lot!”

Stevie’s eyeroll was audible. “You are an actor, David. You’ve kissed like a thousand people onscreen.”

“But not someone like him! Jesus, I’m regretting everything.”

With an air of finality, Stevie tutted her tongue. “I’ll see you at 9 am on Monday.” _Click._

Well fuck, David thought. I’m in it now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David's first day doesn't go as terribly as he thinks it might. He meets Patrick, and sees a few other familiar faces.

David’s breath caught as soon as he stepped into the large room. The air was buzzing with first-day excitement, the usual jitters that came at the beginning of something new. He’d always loved the first day. Everyone was particularly generous at the start and it was virtually impossible to disappoint anyone this early on. The feedback, the criticism, the inevitable drama within the team, that all came later. But on day one, people were too wrapped up in being involved in a new project, too thrilled to have work again, to pay much attention to anyone’s shortcomings. David thrived on first days.

Stevie caught his eye from her place at one of the tables and gave him the finger before gesturing him over. The room was set up the way he was used to for tv read-throughs: a shorter table at the head, with two longer tables perpendicular to either end. So far, so familiar. That was good. David had the sense that he was going to feel out of his depth sooner rather than later, so he clung to anything comfortable. 

“Do you always do a full read-through like this at the beginning?” David asked, dropping into a chair next to Stevie. “In the movies at the studio, we always did scene rehearsals piece by piece.”

Stevie didn’t look at him. Her eyes were trailing someone as they walked in the door, and David turned his head to follow, then nodded in understanding. “Yeah, about that. How the hell did _Mutt Schitt_ end up being your director?”

David didn’t know Mutt well, but had crossed paths with him before. He’d become something of a directorial enigma for small films. Large studios has courted him for multi-million dollar pictures, only for him to choose essentially unheard of projects almost every time. He was pretentious, but in a manageable way, not like a lot of other people David came across. Not like - 

“David Rose. What a momentous twist of fate that has brought us together.” David knew that smarmy, oily voice, and he felt his shoulders go up near his ears as he turned. 

“Sebastien. Hi.” David gave him a nod and then a once-over. He looked good, and David hated him. At least he’d had adequate time to prepare for this. Standing, David gestured to Stevie. “Sorry, um, Stevie and I were just going to, um.” He looked at Stevie, desperate.

“I was just going to introduce David to Patrick,” Stevie said, her voice absolutely holding a note of taunting just for David’s benefit. David turned wildly and saw that indeed, Patrick Brewer had just come in. David’s jaw opened and closed, and he felt Stevie grab his elbow. “Thanks, Sebastien,” she said, and they were crossing the room.

For perhaps the four-hundredth time since Stevie told him who his co-star was, David felt an urge to change careers. Maybe he could be an artist. Move away, start his life over somewhere very far away from this room and Patrick Brewer and his soft warm eyes. But then he was right in front of him.

“Patrick, it’s so good to see you again,” David heard Stevie saying. He blinked a few times, trying to pull himself out of this ridiculous starstruck teenager episode. He’d worked with famous people before. Ryan fucking Reynolds had guest-starred with him, for god’s sake. Pull it together, David.

He came back to the moment, and realized he’d definitely missed something. Patrick was looking at him, almost expectantly, and was holding out his hand. “Sorry, um, David, I’m David,” he said, reaching out and taking Patrick’s hand and giving it a quick shake before recoiling, arms coming up around himself.

“David Rose, I know,” Patrick said, giving him an amused smile. “I’m Patrick. I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

What? Why? David opened and closed his mouth, his eyes darting to Stevie who looked positively delighted at this exchange and to see David floundering. “That’s um, thanks. That’s flattering. You are a great, I mean I’m looking forward with you, too. To working with you! I’m looking forward to working with you.” Yeah, he needed to at least move to a different continent. Maybe become an astronaut so he could physically leave the same atmosphere as Patrick, whose amused smile had only gotten bigger. 

“Thank you, David. I know this is something pretty new for both of us, but it’s a beautiful script,” Patrick said, giving Stevie a nod. “Oh, my manager is waving me over. I’ll see you soon.” Patrick gave David’s arm a friendly pat as he brushed past him, heading away to where a man was _very_ enthusiastically talking to one of the assistants. David vaguely remembered some trade article about Patrick’s recent switch of managers to this guy, Ray something.

David whirled on Stevie, his arms unwrapping so he could move them wildly. “How dare you spring him on me like that? Oh my god, he thinks I’m an idiot. Did you see that?” He mimicked the pat on his arm. “‘This is new for both of us,’ oh my god, he thinks I’m some small-time fraud.”

Stevie was watching David self-implode with apparent glee. “I have no idea what conversation you had with him, because I saw a very cordial interaction between two actors.” David turned to see Patrick in a conversation with his manager, and then Patrick turned slightly toward him and smiled when they met eyes. Blanching, David turned back toward Stevie. 

“I quit. Yep, I’m incapable of doing this, he’s right.”

Rolling her eyes, Stevie started to say something, but was cut off by Mutt calling the room to attention. Name placards had been placed in front of each chair, and they were all instructed to take their respective seats. David was mortified but not surprised to find that he was sitting right next to Patrick, who was all smiles as he waved and greeted everyone. Then, Patrick turned to David and leaned in, his fingers tapping on the table. “This is going to be so fun,” he said, sounding like a little kid about to go to their first carnival.

David managed to smile back, or grimace, but either way, they were off.

***

Surprisingly, David didn’t burst into flames at any time during the read-through. He felt clunky and unpolished next to Patrick’s already seemingly deep understanding of his character, but for the most part things went well. Hearing the story Stevie had written come alive made his heart hurt, but in a good way, in a way he wanted to replicate as often as possible. The characters were tentative, unsure, and David loved hearing how they gained their voices. By the end of the read-through, he knew this was it. This was the project that was going to change his life. 

Patrick had thrown himself headfirst into the script, and was emoting much more than David. Instead of sending David into a tailspin, it actually made him want to work harder, so he could match Patrick. Whatever David’s manager said, Patrick was not a phony or a fake. He was the real deal. David never had been able to pinpoint what it was that Ronnie disliked so much about Patrick, but when he’d told her who his co-star was for the project, she’d laughed for a solid 15 seconds. The thought made David bristle. Patrick would show her, and then she wouldn’t be laughing. David caught himself in his thoughts, and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the protectiveness he suddenly felt for his co-star and his reputation. He still had no idea why Hollywood’s cherub-faced sweetheart was doing a queer indie movie, but David respected him, which was an entirely new feeling.

“David.” A warm hand on his shoulder brought David back, and he turned to see Patrick looking at him, concern etched on his face. “You okay?”

David nodded and gave Patrick a small smile. “Just thinking about what this film is going to mean,” he said, surprising himself with his candor.

Patrick nodded back, his eyes lighting up. “It’s a gorgeous story. That went really well, don’t you think? I think this is going to be something really special.”

It was so bizarre, being consulted by the biggest name in the room. David gave the room a quick sweep, seeing how happy everyone looked. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Long way from _Woodland Hills_ , huh?” Patrick said, a teasing edge to his voice. Somehow, it made him sound warmer, rather than colder.

David’s eyes widened. “You...you watched that?” _Woodland Hills_ was the show David had done with Stevie, the one that had cemented their place in each other’s lives. In a lot of ways, it was the thing that brought him to this very project.

“Are you kidding? That was my favorite show in junior high and high school.” This was a joke, right? Stevie had put Patrick up to this, she must have. But Patrick looked eager, leaning forward and dropping his voice, like he was telling David a secret. “It’s why I was so excited to get to work on this, I’ve been a fan of you and Stevie since I was a teenager.” 

David actually laughed out loud at that. Nope, there’s no way in hell that was true. 

Patrick smiled and shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah, I know. Embarrassing.” His eyes widened. “Not embarrassing that I liked the show! Just, you know. That this is sort of a dream come true.” The earnestness in his voice took David aback. Did people really just casually say things like that? Patrick had just revealed not only that he watched David’s teen drama, but that he _liked_ it and wanted to _work_ with David and Stevie. 

“Wow,” David said slowly, playing for time. “That’s really -”

“Patrick, great work today. I could already hear Peter coming through,” Mutt’s voice interrupted. David gratefully took the out, nodding at Patrick as he stood up and then crossed to where Stevie was drinking coffee. 

“Looks like you two are already bonding,” she said. 

“He said he liked _Woodland Hills._ He said working with you and me is a dream come true. He used those actual fucking words.” David knew his voice was high, and he could hear his heart in his temple. 

“That’s flattering, but he knows he already got the job, right?” Stevie said, her voice an even deadpan.

David paused, turning to catch a glimpse of Patrick listening carefully to whatever Mutt was saying. “I think he’s going to be really good.”

Stevie bumped her shoulder against his. “I think you both are.” 

Maybe this wasn’t going to be a trainwreck after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filming has started and David is doubting everything. Patrick turns things around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are now getting into the actual film-making portion of the fic, and i feel like i should add the disclaimer that i know next to nothing about how movies get made. everything about film production in this fic is written the way i sorta think it happens and also the way i need it to happen for plot.

“Okay, that’s a wrap for today on David,” Mutt’s voice rang out across the soundstage. “David, good job today, but I want you to make sure you keep searching for that missing piece. Jack’s soul is broken, and you need to make sure that’s coming across.”

“Yeah, okay. Definitely, will do, yep,” David replied. 

It was David’s second day in front of the camera, and he couldn’t help but feel like everyone (himself included, if he was honest) was doubting why he was cast in the first place. He’d been all over the place, completely unable to find a consistent tone for his character, Jack. The scenes they’d been working on the past two days were largely solo scenes, scenes that would come at the beginning of the film to introduce Jack to the audience and give context for the setting. David already loved Jack deeply as a character, identifying with him in many ways, but was finding it impossible to convey that with his portrayal.

The film started by following Jack around in his daily routine as a pastry chef at a bakery in the city. The audience would learn through snippets of conversations that Jack had recently broken up with his boyfriend. The plot picked up when Peter, played by Patrick, showed up at the bakery, when the audience would learn that Peter and Jack had grown up together but lost track of each other when Peter’s family moved in his teen years. The two hadn’t seen each other since. The film would then follow them through three days of rekindling their friendship, immediately drawn to each other but hesitant and tentative to move things forward when they both realize there was more to their feelings.

Of course, that was assuming David would even make it that far without being fired.

He was exhausted. With a wave to the crew, David left the bakery set, feeling worse than he’d ever felt after a day of filming. He had absolutely no idea what Mutt was looking for, and take after take after take must have revealed that to every single person on set. In every other show or tv movie he’d done, David had never felt this unsure of his instincts, of his read on who he was portraying, what his motives were, what to do on screen.

With a shake of his head, David entered his trailer to change, grateful he’d brought a pair of joggers rather than a complicated double-zipper pant situation. 

“Bad day?” 

David jumped and banged his elbow, turning to see Stevie sitting, apparently waiting for him. “What the hell?! What are you, some kind of goblin who just breaks into people’s trailers?” he asked, rubbing his arm and cursing himself. He’d thought Stevie had gone home for the day hours ago. In fact, he’d hoped for it. This was  _ her _ story,  _ her _ character that David was struggling to get a grip on. 

“It’s not breaking in if the door is unlocked, and I’m here to keep you from jumping ship. From what I saw today, it looked like you might need it.” Stevie had the same expression she always had, which made it difficult for David to tell how disappointed she was. Dammit.

Heaving a sigh, David collapsed into a chair next to Stevie and stared at the ceiling. “I’m not jumping ship,” he finally said, his voice small. “I just kind of feel like I’m a fraud? Like, we’ve barely even started and I am already doubting my instincts.” He refused to look at Stevie right now, because if he did, he very likely would start crying. And it was way too early in production for that kind of bullshit.

“David, you just said it. This is the  _ beginning _ of the shoot. The stuff you’ve been filming? It’s fluff, it’s going to be two minutes of screentime at the start, you haven’t even really done a full scene yet. This is all basically pointless right now.” Always count on Stevie for matter-of-fact harsh realities. 

“Great, so everything I’ve done the past two days is pointless, thanks so much.” 

“You’re being a diva right now, and honestly, it’s not a good look.” Stevie whacked him on the arm. “What I’m saying is you haven’t had a chance to dive into the meat of who Jack is yet. So you’re still figuring it out! Big fucking deal, so is he. That’s the point.”

With another dramatic sigh, David finally looked over at her. “You’d tell me if I was a terrible actor, right?”

Stevie just gave him her signature smile. “I think I’ve told you that already. A few times, actually.”

David stood and moved to the door of the trailer, holding it open and gesturing Stevie away. “Wow, thanks for that pep talk, you can go now.”   
  
On her way past him, Stevie fixed David with a serious look. “David, it’s going to work. You haven’t even done a scene with Patrick yet. If your scenes with him tomorrow don’t go well, I promise,” she put a hand on his shoulder, “I’ll fire you myself.”

David rolled his eyes and bit his cheek to keep from smiling, gesturing out the door again. “Warmest regards.”   
  
“Best wishes.”

He closed the door and sank into the chair in front of his mirror. “Patrick,” he said, staring at himself. He’d nearly forgotten while wallowing in self-pity that he had his first scene with him tomorrow. God.

***

The call time the next day was 7:30 am, and David wasn’t exactly feeling charitable as he walked out of the make-up trailer. He’d slept terribly the night before, turning Mutt’s various prodding directions over and over in his head, imagining the countless ways he could fail today. Stevie had told David that Mutt was very adamant about filming as much of the story in sequence as possible, so they were slated to film the scene where Peter and Jack see each other for the first time. It wasn’t lost on David that what they filmed today would set the tone for the rest of the project. All the pent-up fears he’d had of failing on his first time out on his own were bubbling dangerously close to the surface, and he’d never felt less confident.

Unsurprisingly, Patrick was already on set when David came in. He was chatting amiably with a freckled assistant, and David wondered if years of starring in Hollywood blockbusters meant Patrick had acclimated to early mornings. As soon as Patrick saw that David had entered, he lifted his head and smiled. David felt his face smiling in return before he’d even registered it. That was new. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever smiled before 8 am. 

In the rehearsals and other interactions they’d had since the read-through, David had been surprised at how quickly he stopped being starstruck. He still felt drawn to Patrick and definitely still admired him as an actor, but Patrick made it impossible not to feel comfortable. That was also new. David was already feeling about 10% better about the day’s shoot, and all it had taken was acknowledgement from Patrick. Jesus, he needed to keep this show crush under control. He crossed to where Patrick was still in conversation with the assistant.

“Good morning, David! You look absolutely thrilled to be here. Let me guess - you’re a morning person?” Patrick’s eyes were dancing as he watched David come closer. 

David lifted his coffee cup in response and took a long drink, drawing a delighted laugh from Patrick, who turned to the assistant. 

“Thanks, Twyla. You’ll have to finish telling me about what happened with your aunt’s boyfriend later though.” Patrick gave her a friendly smile and then turned to David. “So, about the scene today.”   
  
David felt his stomach drop. Patrick had probably seen the dailies from yesterday and wanted to tell David what he was doing wrong. Of course he would, he was so much more experienced than David. David’s arms immediately came up around himself in his instinctive protective pose, and Patrick looked down at them, then back up at David, eyebrows furrowed. “You okay?”   
  
Fuck. So Patrick was the  _ attentive _ type. David swallowed and carefully dropped his arms. “Yeah, uh. Just got cold for a second. You were saying…?”

“Right,” Patrick said, sounding a bit skeptical but apparently not going to press the issue. “I wanted to ask you. How do you feel about where Peter and Jack are when they first see each other? I’m stuck on which way to play it. I want to make sure we get it right, because the story sort of depends on it, you know?”   
  
David stared at Patrick, his mouth open. Patrick was asking  _ him _ for advice? Did Patrick have him confused with Mutt? Or Stevie? Or literally anyone more talented and qualified? “Um, you want my input?”

Patrick looked at David with a bit of surprise. “Of course I do. This whole thing comes down to how you and I work together, so I want to make sure I’m on the same page as you.”   
  
Of any of the thousands of things David had imagined happening today, perennial leading man Patrick Brewer coming to him for advice was certainly not among them. David shook his head. “I...actually I’ve been struggling with that a bit, too. My solo scenes were, um, less than my best.” 

Patrick nodded and looked around, dropping his voice. “Mine too. I thought Mutt was going to punch me by the end. He kept saying things like ‘Peter needs to be more fragile,’ and then he’d say ‘don’t look like you’re going to break.’ It felt like I’d never been on a movie set before.”   
  
David’s eyebrows had steadily moved up his forehead as he listened. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s actually so great to hear. I thought maybe I had just lost touch with my abilities entirely by the time I finished yesterday.” Again, David surprised himself with how open he was already feeling with this man he barely knew. That wasn’t the sort of thing he normally would verbalize to almost anyone. He resisted the urge to cross his arms, knowing that Patrick was paying attention.

“I think maybe we’re just going to have to follow each other in this one. Mutt’s a great director, but really it comes down to you and me.” Patrick’s soft brown eyes were trained on David, and he looked so...hopeful? David found himself nodding immediately. Patrick was saying exactly what he needed to hear. 

“I think we need to establish their attraction right away,” David said, unsure where the words had come from, but believing them as they came out of his mouth. “They’re both tentative, obviously, but I feel like Jack has spent his whole life waiting for Peter to come back, you know? Like, he didn’t realize it, but he’s spent his life just waiting for Peter to walk back in. And when Peter shows up, I think it clicks right away but Jack can’t acknowledge it yet.” David’s mouth clamped shut. Not 12 hours ago, David couldn’t find a single impulse for his character, and now he felt like he knew exactly what Jack was thinking and feeling and how to portray that.

Patrick looked as surprised as David felt, but was nodding fervently. “I think you’re exactly right. Peter, too. Like he’s been searching everywhere, not realizing that he was looking for something he already knew.” David had already been impressed by how in sync Patrick seemed with his character back at the read-through, but he finally felt like they were on the same page. Patrick put his hand on David’s shoulder, and David fought not to shake under his touch. “Listen, I trust you, okay? The scene’s going to be great.”

_ I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. _ David heard the words bounce around in his head for the next half hour as the crew put things into place to start shooting. The words had settled and wrapped somewhere warm in his ribcage. He knew that Patrick just meant that he trusted David’s acting and instincts, but it felt big. It felt like the first time someone actually saw him. 

At Mutt’s call, David found his mark for the beginning of the scene, and realized that for the first time in years, he wasn’t nervous at all.

“Action!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week of shooting, some of the cast and crew go out to a bar. Patrick opens up to David, and David chips away at his guard.

Stevie came back to the table holding two large pitchers of beer, and a chorus of cheers sounded. It had been a rewarding but long day on set, and with tomorrow being their day off, a group of cast and crew had decided to take advantage and go out. David was tired all the way to his bones, the satisfied exhaustion that came when he knew he was pouring everything into a project. Jobs like that had been few and far between as he’d aged, no longer eligible to play tortured teens and meaty guest roles happening less and less. 

He’d ended up seated next to Patrick, and after two glasses of beer and a polar bear shot, David was feeling fuzzy around his ears and affectionate toward everyone at the table. Nearly everyone. Sebastien had largely kept his distance during shooting, sticking close to Mutt as his director of photography, no doubt trying to weasel his way into Mutt’s favor to benefit himself. But now and then, he’d materialize wherever David was looking for peace and quiet and say something about how brave David was for taking a role opposite a big name like Patrick, or how great it was that David didn’t concern himself with maintaining a star physique, always cloaking his condescension inside a half-compliment. When Stevie had announced everyone was invited to go for drinks, Sebastien popped up out of nowhere behind David and put an arm over his shoulder. “You’re going out tonight, right?” he murmured, his voice dangerous. David had shaken his shoulders and stepped away quickly, muttering something about needing to call Ronnie. Now, Sebastien was seated at the far end of the table, flirting with the kind-faced assistant that David was starting to feel awfully fond of. 

Patrick pulled David out of his thoughts by refilling his glass, and David beamed at him. Maybe it was the polar bear shot, but David couldn’t believe how lucky he was. Acting with Patrick was the most natural thing in the world. They’d been filming together for a week now, but David felt like he’d been working with him for years. Patrick pushed David to be better: taking him aside and making quiet suggestions, listening to David’s feedback, adjusting and readjusting until they were perfectly in sync. Never once did David feel that Patrick looked down on him, or wanted to change him. Patrick wanted them both to be as good as they could be together, and it had been paying off in the dailies that David watched. The chemistry on screen was palpable, both characters longing for each other but guarding it tightly.

Feeling entirely overcome with emotions (and alcohol), David stood up and raised his glass, tapping a fork against it. Once everyone had turned to look at him, David gestured his glass toward Stevie, sitting a few people away. “To my best friend, Stevie Budd, who brought us this story. I know we’re not even halfway through the shoot, but this has already been…” David took a breath. Suddenly he regretted standing up. Everyone was staring at him. David wanted to find several blankets to hide underneath, to keep Patrick’s soft gaze off of him, to keep Sebastien from looking at him like prey, to keep Stevie from making fun of his moment of sincerity. Someone cleared their throat, and David kept going, his voice a little shaky. “This has already been one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life. So, to Stevie, and to all of you. Cheers.” He sat down hard, a bit of beer sloshing over the side of his glass. 

Patrick leaned in, bumping his shoulder. “Thanks, David. That was beautiful. I almost teared up a little.” The way his teasing smile came through his voice sent a little wave over David’s nerve endings, and he rolled his eyes to keep from giving himself away.

“I’m an actor, my job is to move people,” he replied, drinking a bit to stall, to give him something to do other than look at Patrick’s impossibly close face, probably with that expression of open amusement or gentle admiration.

“You’re definitely doing that,” Patrick said, forcing David to look at him. It wasn’t amusement on his face. David’s own face must have betrayed his surprise, because Patrick shrugged and took a drink, then went on. “This past week, what you said, it’s true for me too. This has been such a rewarding experience for me. And you’re -” Patrick blew out a breath. “What you’re doing with Jack, it’s really incredible, David.”

The genuineness, the _earnestness_ made David squirm, shaking his head and looking around, hoping to find anyone else to latch onto for conversation, to stop Patrick from saying these beautiful things that David ached to hear. Finally, he turned back to Patrick and shook his head again. “You’re making me better,” he said with a bit of difficulty. It was true, but David had long learned to channel all of his sincerity into his acting, hardly ever letting anyone see his own true self. Real life wasn’t as lovely as film; sincerity got you hurt. Hell, David had evidence of that sitting at the other end of this very table, leaning in and twirling Twyla’s hair between his fingers. David blinked and looked down at the millions of rings left on the wood of the table from thousands of glasses. “Why are you doing this movie?”

David hadn’t meant to ask yet, but he was desperate to move away from this conversation. Patrick was already carving out a pretty significant place in David’s heart, and listening to him tell David how talented and impressive he was definitely wasn’t going to help.

Patrick looked like he expected the question, though. Of course he did. He’d probably had this conversation a hundred times. “It’s kind of complicated,” he started, and David raised a hand.

“Sorry, I didn’t - that was a lot more blunt than I meant to phrase it,” David said, backpedaling as he imagined all the various ways he could fuck up their working relationship. That would be incredibly on-brand: find the one person who makes him totally comfortable onscreen and then be too nosy or dramatic or abrupt and throw a wrench in the whole thing.

Instead, Patrick just lifted an eyebrow and gave David a half-smile. “I’ve seen you talk to crew members, I know tact isn’t exactly your thing.”

“Ted gave me _decaf_ coffee! Have you met me? Do I seem like the type of person who drinks decaf?”

“You seem like the type of person who might benefit from drinking decaf,” Patrick shot back, a full smile on his face now. David loved that Patrick teased him. He’d never admit it of course, but Patrick always looked almost _fond_ when he was teasing David, and truth be told David would settle for endless needling and jibes and jokes if it meant Patrick had that look in his eyes.

“Ignoring that,” David said, biting back a grin, “you obviously don’t have to tell me, but. You can’t really blame me for wondering. You’re - well, you’re a big name, and this is a relatively tiny film. Something had to happen to bring you from there to here.”

Patrick was looking at David thoughtfully now, his brow furrowed a bit. He looked like he was making a decision. Their table was still rowdy around them, but David completely tuned them out. Slowly, Patrick started to speak, turning in toward David. 

“I’ve been in Hollywood since I was a kid, right? And lately, it started to feel, god I don’t know how to really explain it.” Patrick’s fingers were pushed together, interlaced and full of tension. It all seemed pretty dramatic, since David knew this couldn’t be the first time Patrick was telling the story. But it seemed like Patrick was having difficulty finding the words. “I have a type that I play. You’ve seen my movies, you know what I mean.”

Immediately, David chimed in. “Charming handsome bachelor who finds love with a spinning wheel of gorgeous actresses.” Fuck, David shouldn’t have done that shot. He was being a lot more forthright than he’d be comfortable with tomorrow, he knew it.

Patrick barked out a laugh. “Well, yeah, actually. It was the same thing over and over, and my life felt like - it was like I’d stagnated already. I saw the rest of my career pan out, and I knew I was going to keep playing the same role until I aged out, and then I’d play, you know, the dad of up-and-comers, and I’d maybe be in insurance commercials, and that would be it. I’d be at the end of my career, and I never would have done something that meant anything to me.”

David was silent, watching the emotions flick across Patrick’s face as he spoke. He knew exactly what Patrick meant, he’d seen it happen to dozens of actors. Tons of promise, and then they get railroaded into one path and they can’t get out. Patrick was sitting here in a bar full of people, exposing his most vulnerable thoughts with such openness. David’s heart clenched. Patrick was more gifted than anyone he’d ever worked with. He connected so deeply, and it had to be because of this, because of his lack of fear to open up. David envied him for a split second.

With a sigh, Patrick took a long drink from his beer and then looked right at David as he went on, sounding more confident now. “So I ended it. I ended everything. I got rid of my manager and found someone who’d actually listen to what I need. I finally broke things off from the relationship that I knew was going nowhere, and decided I wouldn’t take another job until I felt like it was the right one. And then Ray sent me the script for this, and,” Patrick paused, smiling ruefully, “it sounds like such a cliche, but it was a lightning bolt moment. As soon as I started reading, I knew that I had to do it. And here I am,” he finished, lifting his glass to David and draining the rest of it.

David didn’t know what to say. How do you respond to someone laying themselves bare like that? He should have just stuck with listening to Patrick compliment him. 

“What about you?” Patrick said, his knee nudging David’s under the table, making David’s stomach do a quick swoop.

“What about me?”

“Why did you do something outside of Rose Television?” Patrick didn’t have the accusatory look that Alexis wore when she asked him, or the wounded face his father had, or the simpering look from his mother as she churned out platitudes about ‘spreading one’s wings and being volant, if even for a mere moment.’ Patrick looked like he actually cared about the answer, like he was genuinely interested in what David had to say.

“Um. Well, I guess I looked around and realized I’ve been in this business for 25 years, and I’ve never really done anything on my own.” It made sense when he’d made the decision, and it still made sense in his head, but David immediately felt defensive and afraid that Patrick would think of him as entitled. “Obviously I’m so lucky to be in the position I’m in, um, it’s just that I needed to know if -” Why was this so difficult? Patrick had been honest and open, so why the fuck did David feel like his heart was about to push itself out of his chest? “I needed to know if I was a real actor.” Once he’d said it, David slumped back in his seat. Expressing genuine human emotion was exhausting enough as an actor, but David felt more winded from the 3 minutes he’d exposed himself now than he did after this entire week of filming.

“I understand that,” Patrick said, his voice gone a bit quieter. “I guess that’s sort of what I was looking for too. Am I a real actor, or can I only do the role I’ve grown comfortable playing.”  
  
David’s head shot up. Did Patrick seriously doubt his abilities? “Your movies make me cry,” he replied, eyes wide. 

“So you’re saying I’m a terrible actor in those, too,” Patrick responded, a smile playing on his lips.

David rolled his head back and hit it against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. He’d already cracked himself open tonight for Patrick, and that third beer was settling in. Might as well go the whole way. “I watch your movies after every bad break-up or failed date,” he said to the burned out lightbulb above the table. “You kind of symbolize this ideal future that might be out there somewhere.” He whipped his head around, alarmed. “Your characters! Obviously, your characters, not you specifically. Um.” 

Patrick looked like David had just presented him with a priceless gem, surprised and awestruck and maybe a bit embarrassed? His ears had gone slightly pink. “Thank you, David. I’ve had a lot of people tell me something more or less like that, but it means a lot coming from you.” He patted David’s shoulder, sending a fresh wave of butterflies through him. “And for what it’s worth, I think this movie is going to show everyone that you’re a real actor.”

Fidgeting with his now empty glass, David bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “Thank you,” he said in a small voice. 

One of the assistant directors who was on the other side of Patrick nudged him just then, asking a question about his schedule. David breathed out in relief; that had been _a lot,_ and he was grateful to have a few moments to collect himself, to try and keep up some sort of facade to keep Patrick from knowing how wide open he felt.

Somewhere down the table, someone stood and announced that they were heading out. The rest of the table slowly followed suit, trickling out of the bar as they finished up conversations, wishing each other a good day off. David stayed in his seat, not willing to give up the proximity to Patrick until absolutely necessary. It was because he respected him as an actor, he told himself, that was all. He was learning so much from him, that’s why he wanted to be around him whenever possible. 

Patrick didn’t seem too eager to leave either, chatting idly with those who remained, teasing David whenever he had a chance. In the back of David’s brain, he made a mental note to look up all the information he could on Patrick’s past relationship. He remembered seeing him in red carpets photos with a lovely redhead on his arm, someone who worked in editing or maybe design, he thought. David hadn’t seen anything about a breakup, which was unusual for someone as high-profile as Patrick Brewer. 

Finally, David and Patrick were the only people left at the table. As they walked out together to wait for their separate cabs, David turned to watch the way Patrick’s whole face lit up when he laughed at something David had said. It was nice, David thought, having someone who enjoyed his company without looking to get anything from it. Or maybe Patrick wanted to spend time with him so their characters would have better chemistry. That was more likely, but David felt a tiny flicker of hope that maybe Patrick really did just want to be around him.

The warm feeling that had curled up inside David the first time Patrick said ‘I trust you’ was steadily growing, and David already knew it was going to be a real bitch when the shoot ended in a couple weeks. For now though, he was determined to make sure this movie was everything Patrick had been waiting for.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David's on edge after Stevie points out the chemistry between him and Patrick. He has a momentary meltdown and misunderstanding with Patrick.

Despite the constant sense of accomplishment this project was bringing, David was not and would never be a morning person. They were well into their second week of shooting together, but not even the prospect of seeing Patrick cheered David up as he nursed his coffee and walked into the studio. Well, that wasn’t _entirely_ true. David’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Patrick, and he took a long, steadying breath. Patrick was talking to Twyla again. Twyla was sweet and kind and unfailingly optimistic, and it made sense to David that Patrick gravitated toward her. He wondered for the hundredth time how Patrick had managed to remain so... _nice,_ after all his time in this business.

When Patrick saw David, he politely ended his conversation with Twyla and came over. This had become customary for them; whenever they were both on set, they were together. Initially, it was more a necessity than anything, as they needed to work through their scenes for the day. But each day less and less of their time together focused on the movie. Neither of them worried anymore about how their relationship on screen would come across; the footage made it evident that things were working well. Instead, David found himself listening to Patrick’s stories about past projects, chiming in when Patrick mentioned an actor David had worked with. David would then respond with long, complicated accounts of his experiences at the studio, or seemingly unbelievable anecdotes about his family. Patrick had laughed wildly when David told him about the time Alexis had gone to Italy for a publicity event, and then somehow ended up as Dane DeHann’s date to the Cannes Film Festival, which had then led to her aboard a yacht on the coast of Spain. David chased the moments when Patrick would smile at him, wide and unguarded, like it was a gift of some kind.

Stevie had noticed, of course. Last night, she’d been in David’s room watching trashy entertainment news with him, when out of nowhere she’d turned and said, “You’re good together.” David had looked at her with wide-eyed horror, not used to Stevie saying what she meant outright. He hadn’t needed to ask who she meant. She then neatly pushed down all his protestations about them just working well together, about Patrick’s publicized relationships with exclusively women, about her mistaking their characters’ chemistry as real. She’d simply shrugged and said, “tell that to the way he looks at you when you’re both off camera.” David had immediately announced that he needed to get to sleep for his early morning, and then spent two hours tossing and turning in bed, trying to blot out Stevie’s words from his mind.

He heard those words ringing loud and clear as Patrick greeted him and then immediately launched into another story. David nodded and laughed at appropriate moments, but he wasn’t entirely focused on the words. Instead, he was trying to figure out what Stevie meant. Patrick had the same look on his face that David had grown accustomed to, all of his relatively average features coming together to form something more magnificent than the sum of its parts. Spending so much time in scenes with him meant David could read minute changes in his expressions, but he didn’t see anything unusual now. 

Patrick paused and tilted his head slightly. “You aren’t listening to anything I’m saying, David.” It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t an accusation either. “What’s up? You seem...distracted.”

“Oh, it’s not, I’m not distracted, it’s just -” David bit his lip. Patrick and his fucking _attentiveness_ again. Searching for something, anything, David looked over and saw Sebastien leaning in close to Twyla again, and latched on. “I’m just worried about that whole situation over there,” he said, gesturing to the pair across the set. “Twyla seems like an actual kind human being, and Sebastien - I just don’t like it.”  
  
Patrick turned to look and nodded slowly. “Twyla is a really great girl, she’s so sweet. You’re worried about her with Sebastien?”

David felt like he’d been punched as everything clicked into place in his head. It all made so much sense. Patrick had feelings for Twyla. They were two nice people with nice faces and uncomplicated family histories and Patrick was going to whisk her away at the end of the shoot and David was going to be alone, again. Unfortunately David didn’t have time to melt down right now, as Patrick was looking at him with concern etched all over his perfect face. 

“Sebastien uses people,” David breathed out, focusing all his training on keeping his composure so he could get through this conversation and then banish himself to a remote corner of the studio until absolutely necessary. “He...we have a history.”  
  
Patrick’s eyebrows rose a bit, but he didn’t speak, waiting for more.

“A few years ago, he showed up on set to shoot promo photos for a new series the studio was putting out, and um. He’s very flattering and charming when he wants to be. We um, he basically used me to get a more permanent position. He wasn’t a DP at the time, but he’s always been ambitious. As soon as he got what he wanted, he dropped me.”

Patrick’s face had gone stony. “So you think he’s flirting with Twyla to, what, advance his career?”

Slowly, David looked over to where Twyla was giggling as Sebastien whispered something close to her ear. “I think he is incapable of feeling anything genuine, especially for someone as good as Twyla,” he finally said, the weight of it crushing him. He was handing Patrick the perfect opportunity to play the white knight, to banish the villain and rescue the girl. What would happen when Patrick and Twyla got together? Would his chemistry with David suffer on screen? Would David suddenly be alone in this production, just a co-worker to the person he’d come to think of as a peer, a friend, a…

David didn’t have time to finish spiraling, watching in mixed horror and fascination as Patrick walked quickly across the lot to Sebastien. Afraid to know what was happening, but more afraid _not_ to know, David trailed behind, keeping a safe distance. Patrick said something to Twyla, who hurried away, likely to run some sort of false errand. David’s eyes widened as Patrick stood up straight and looked right into Sebastien’s face, his voice too low for David to hear. Patrick was shorter than Sebastien by a head, but that made absolutely no difference here. It would be obvious to anyone viewing the exchange that Patrick was in charge, his shoulders rolled back and chin slightly lifted. David didn’t need to hear him to see the fire in his eyes. Underneath the surprised admiration David felt at seeing this side of Patrick, he’d already started to mourn losing him to Twyla. Patrick was the best person David had ever known. It was glaringly obvious as David watched Patrick confront likely the worst person he’d ever known. 

All of a sudden, everything was too much. David couldn’t be here, couldn’t watch this happen anymore. He turned on his heel and marched outside, his breathing shallow and erratic. Why the hell had he let himself get so attached? Now he was going to have to look Patrick in the eye, on camera, and pretend like his heart wasn’t breaking. God, he was such an idiot.

Leaning back against a trailer outside, David closed his eyes and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, willing his internal walls to come back up. 

“David,” Patrick said, his voice close enough to startle David. He opened his eyes and saw Patrick looking at him with worry in his eyes. “Everything okay? Sorry I kind of ran off, I just needed to make sure I talked to Sebastien before he did anything.”

David nodded, blinking quickly and looking anywhere but into Patrick’s face. “Yep, totally fine, I’m great. Needed some air. How did it, um, what happened?” 

Without looking at him, David heard Patrick sigh heavily. “I might have gotten a bit too in his face, but he won’t be doing anything else to lead Twyla on. She’s a trusting person, and he’s a scumbag from the sound of it.”

“Mhm, yeah. That’s great. I should probably…” David gestured to the door, desperate to get out of this. Without waiting for an answer, he took a step and then froze as Patrick’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist lightly.

“David.” Patrick waited until David looked up at him. He looked almost apologetic. Fuck, he knew David had a show crush on him, and he was going to want to have this conversation now. “David, I’m sorry if I crossed a line. You told me what happened between you two in confidence, but I couldn’t just hang around and watch him toy with Twyla like that. She’s kind of come to feel like a sister on set for me, and I hated the idea of what happened to you happening to her.”

David stared at Patrick, his mouth slightly open. Just when David felt like he finally had a grip on things, Patrick had managed to radically shift his entire world again. Patrick still had that apologetic look, and David felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in his throat. Patrick was _apologizing_ for stepping in to protect Twyla. “You did the right thing. You’re...you’re a really good person, Patrick.”

That took Patrick aback, and then a smile bloomed over his face, ears going pink the way they sometimes did when he was really pleased about something. “You’re a good person too, David.” He released David’s wrist suddenly, as though he’d forgotten he was still holding it, and then cleared his throat. “We should probably get back, they’ll be starting up soon.”  
  
David’s heart was pounding in his ears as he followed Patrick back inside. Just because Patrick thought of Twyla as a sister didn’t mean anything, he reminded himself, cycling through the list of things he’d said to Stevie the night before as evidence that nothing was going on. 

But he couldn’t shake it; outside the studio, in the early morning sunshine, David was almost sure he had caught a glimpse of the look she meant.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head for both Jack and Peter, and David and Patrick.

After a full two weeks of being mostly sequestered to indoor studios, it came as a relief to everyone when they received their schedules and saw they’d be starting their on-location shoot. Much of the film took place on soundstages, and while that was relatively standard it would still be a welcome change to spend some time outdoors. 

Once David realized that Patrick was _not_ in fact trying to sweep Twyla off her feet, he decided that he couldn’t afford another meltdown and that he needed to focus on the project. Of course he still had his show crush on Patrick, but he could manage that. He’d had them a thousand times. He just needed to make it through the rest of the shoot, and then he could compartmentalize it away and move on. Patrick would still be the one who pushed David to be better than he’d ever been, and that could be enough. It would have to be.

Although Stevie’s words still surfaced at inopportune moments in his head, David poured all of his energy into the work, fighting to capture the growing tension between Jack and Peter. Since the shoot was still following Mutt’s strict schedule of filming chronologically, they’d worked through the second day of Peter and Jack getting reacquainted, and the scenes were becoming more and more weighty. David could feel the way the characters were gravitating toward each other, both just waiting for the other to make the leap, unable to do it alone. Today’s shoot would start the film’s third day, when everything comes to a head and the characters are forced to move forward one way or another.

David was practically vibrating with nervous energy as the crew adjusted lighting, cameras, booms. This was _the_ scene. Everything he and Patrick had been doing until now led them and their characters to today’s shoot. David remembered how afraid he’d been before his first scene with Patrick, and how Patrick had somehow known exactly what to do and say to cut through the noise in David’s head. He looked around, having lost track of Patrick in the commotion of everything being put in position and checked and then rechecked. As soon as he spotted Patrick, standing alone off behind everyone, he made his way over.

“Should I be worried? I never see you by yourself, you’re always charming an AD or rescuing an assistant, I thought that was kind of your thing,” David said. He kept his voice light, but Patrick looked like something was slightly off, and alarms were sounding in David’s head. 

Patrick’s mouth quirked up and he kicked at the ground, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Today’s kind of the big test, isn’t it? If I can’t pull off this scene, then I’ll have my answer and I’ll know.” It still astounded David that Patrick said these things so freely and easily. Patrick didn’t hide behind walls, and David didn’t understand how he could live that way, just spending every single day completely exposed to the world.

David wished he had the power Patrick had that first day, to intuit precisely what the other man needed to hear. He settled for at least giving Patrick something true. “You don’t have anything to prove. I’ve known a lot of actors, and I’ve never seen someone give themselves over to the story the way you do. You’ve already done whatever it is you came here to do, and I don’t think there’s any possible way you could get it wrong now.” Patrick had turned to look at David, his mouth slightly open and his eyes full of something David was too afraid to try and name. The intensity of the moment and the look Patrick was giving him made David blink and clear his throat. “And besides. You’re acting opposite me, so no matter what you’re going to look good,” he added, desperately trying to lighten the conversation, to infuse it with their normal teasing. David was comfortable with that, but this look Patrick was giving him, it was dangerous. David would probably recklessly tear himself open to get Patrick to look at him that way again.

Patrick seemed at a loss for words, and David found himself still talking, unable to stop. “Remember what you said before our first day shooting together? You told me you trusted me. I don’t know if I would have been able to do this whole thing,” David gestured over to the crew putting the last touches on the park bench where the scene was going to take place, “without that. I realize now I never actually told you, but I trust you too. You’re um,” David swallowed, his voice thick. Jesus, how did people _do_ this? “We’re going to be fine. The scene is going to be great,” he finished, somewhat lamely. If he had Patrick’s open vulnerabilities, he’d probably have been able to go on and give a big, moving speech about how Patrick was the only reason David felt like a real actor, how working with him made David better in every possible way. But he wasn’t Patrick. And he was about to give a similar speech as Jack, and if he did it now for real, he didn’t think he’d be able to stomach doing it on screen.

None of that seemed to matter to Patrick, who pulled David in for a hug. David’s breath caught as Patrick held him close. Everything was tilting slightly, and David irrationally wondered if he’d pass out when Patrick let go. Even as David felt the heat radiating off of Patrick, he heard a little voice in his head reminding him it was just about the work; Patrick was thankful that David had given him a pep talk, that was all. Patrick’s fingers sprawling over David’s back didn’t mean anything. When Patrick finally pulled back, his eyes were shining and David had an urge to run away. That open, fond look was going to kill him.

“Thank you, David. I guess I just got in my head.” Patrick looked a little dazed, his ears tinged pink. “I do trust you. I know you’re going to be amazing today. And I needed to be reminded that we have to go in as a team, you know?” 

David nodded, overwhelmed by the dual urges to either pull Patrick into another crushing hug or go hide under a bridge somewhere so he’d never have to look at him again. “A team,” he repeated. Why did that set off a horde of ridiculous stupid butterflies inside him? 

At the sound of Mutt calling everyone to attention, they made their way over to the bench and sat, muttering lines under their breaths. David had spent hours with Stevie going through the speech he was about to give as Jack, trying it every single way he could. Stevie had been helpful enough, but something in David knew he wouldn’t be able to do it right unless it was with Patrick. Patrick had been right, they were a team. David’s interpretation of Jack was inextricably linked to Patrick as Peter, and as he sat there listening to Patrick whisper bits of dialogue, he knew what he needed to do. Throughout the characters’ previous two days, they’d both kept their guard up, and David knew what that felt like, barely had to act. But now, he needed to do with Jack what he’d never been able to do as himself, and lay himself completely bare. The speech told of how Jack had come to realize that he’d always been in love with Peter, since they were boys. Every carefully concealed feeling came to the surface as Jack told Peter how he’d tried to find someone else, but had never forgotten about him, and he would then watch Peter walk away after saying he needed time.

A touch of panic boiled up in David’s stomach at the thought of opening up that much, even on screen. But then Patrick’s hand was on his knee, and he looked up to see the warmest smile on Patrick’s face. “You’ve got this,” Patrick whispered, and David took a breath and squared his shoulders as Mutt called action.  
  
***  
  
It was nearly 7 o’clock by the time Mutt finally called the day to a close, and David’s entire body felt shaky and off-kilter. He’d had emotionally draining shoots before, but nothing had ever pulled him apart like today had. Over and over, he plucked at the cage he kept around himself and squeezed out the broken pieces as honestly as he knew how. Having Patrick there made David feel safe, but he’d never had to delve this deep before, and as he walked to where Stevie had set up for the day, he took a wobbly breath and cringed as a tear rolled down his cheek. Annoyed at himself, he brushed it away and sat next to Stevie, who was looking at him like she’d never seen him before.

“So where was that all the millions of times you made me listen to you rehearse this scene?” Stevie asked, and David felt a wave of gratitude that she was ignoring his red-rimmed eyes.

David took another breath, trying to settle the jittery feeling that was crawling all over him. “Patrick,” he said simply, watching as Patrick talked to Mutt, nodding and furrowing his eyebrows. 

Stevie followed his gaze. “Are you planning on telling him, or am I going to have to do something drastic?”

“Fuck off, I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” David snapped back. It was hard enough to splinter himself open on camera, and he wasn’t about to do it now. 

“Why not? Because you had a long day on set? Or because you don’t think I’m right?” Stevie asked, not giving David an inch.

He threw his hands up. “I just spent hours and hours pouring my whole soul out! Can you stop with the fucking lecture?”

Stevie snorted. “You just spent hours and hours pouring _Jack’s_ whole soul out, because it’s your job. Why don’t you tell me what’s actually bothering you?”

Of all the things David loved and hated about Stevie, her ability to bore into him with laser-precision was the top. “I can’t do it,” he said, all the fight rushing out of him as he slumped back. “I’ve never been able to do anything like that, let someone in the way Jack does with Peter.” Shaking, David looked up at the sky, starting to turn pink in the sunset. “It’s been made glaringly obvious to me that I’m incapable of doing it myself, so I don’t really want to talk about whatever you think is going on with me and Patrick.”

“Looks like you don’t have to,” Stevie responded, and David picked up his head and saw Patrick striding over toward them. Fuck. Stevie stood and said something to Patrick, but David didn’t hear it, was too focused on the way Patrick seemed to be radiating light. How could he possibly not be as drained as David was?

“Hey, let’s go for a walk,” Patrick said. David stared up at him a bit dumbfounded. 

“I literally don’t know if I _can_ walk at this point,” David responded, though he’d already stood up. “How are you so -” he gestured up and down, “you know? I feel like I’ve just been put through a blender.”

Patrick chuckled as they started to walk away from the crew and the lights of the set, down a trail that led to a pond. “I don’t know what you mean, you look fresh as a daisy,” Patrick said through a laugh. 

Unable to keep himself from asking, David blurted out, “How was it today?”

Patrick stopped walking, looking at David with wide eyes. “You really don’t know?” he asked, voice incredulous.

“So it was that bad, is what you’re saying,” David said, picking up the pace so Patrick had to jog a few steps to catch up. “I haven’t had to, you know, put that much of myself into something before, so I had no idea what I was doing really, and -” He cut off as Patrick grabbed his shoulder firmly, stopping them both on the path. 

“David.” David loved the way his name sounded on Patrick’s lips. It was constantly different: reassuring, teasing, exasperated, mollifying, fond. Always fond, underneath everything else. “It’s important to me that you know how glad I am that I signed on to this movie, and that you are the reason. You’re an incredible actor, and today was just more proof.”

David smiled despite himself, turning to Patrick and catching his breath. There it was. This was the look Stevie must have meant. It was etched on every centimeter of Patrick’s face. “That’s a really lovely thing to say,” David breathed.

Patrick rolled his eyes and grinned. “‘And you were really wonderful today, too, Patrick. I’m so impressed by you.’”

That drew a laugh from David, who just looked at Patrick, the pink and purple of the setting sun bringing out the red glints in his hair. For an instant, Patrick’s eyes flicked down to David’s lips, and then David was leaning forward, a hand on the side of Patrick’s face. Their lips met, and David could feel Patrick’s surprise quickly shift into something else. Patrick placed a strong hand on David’s hip and opened his mouth just slightly. David tilted his head and kissed Patrick deeper, feeling the jitters and tension bleed out of his body as he did. For a few long moments they stood there in the middle of the park, halfway between the set and the pond, relishing the freedom to finally explore each other. 

When David broke the kiss, he pressed his forehead to Patrick’s, not willing to move away from him yet. He kept his eyes closed and listened to Patrick’s breathing, which had gone slightly ragged.

“I didn’t want our first kiss to be on screen,” Patrick said, his breath warming David’s lips. “Thank you for doing that.”

“Our first kiss,” David repeated, smiling through the words. “So you’ve been thinking about this.”  
  
Patrick responded by leaning in and kissing David again, less sweetly than before. When he pulled back, the pink of his ears had bloomed over his cheeks and neck as well. “You could say that.”

David laughed and looked up, trying to memorize how he felt in this exact moment so he could come back to it over and over. “Stevie’s going to be so fucking smug,” David said, not managing to sound too unhappy about it. 

“Yeah, Twyla might throw a party,” Patrick said back, his entire face alight. 

David responded by pulling Patrick close and hugging him, burying his head in the crook of his neck and breathing in. They’d have to discuss their working relationship, and what this meant moving forward, and their expectations, and a million other things, but for now, David just held on tight and willed himself not to float away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after David and Patrick's first kiss. Things escalate.

When David arrived on set the next day, back at the park for a second day of shoots, he was determined to be casual and nonchalant, to not be _too much_ like he always was. Partner after partner had told him that, sometimes by cheating, sometimes by disappearing entirely, sometimes by using those exact words. Then again, Patrick was unlike anyone David had been with before. Despite his stardom, Patrick was wholesome, kind, generous. Last night while laying in bed David replayed their first kiss, and their second, and their eighth, and their walk back to the set, slightly breathless from the effort to not take each other’s hand. David could be patient. He’d never had to before, but he’d never had a Patrick to wait for either.

The moment Patrick showed up on set and saw him, David watched as he physically bloomed. Patrick’s eyes softened, his mouth automatically lifted into a smile, and his shoulders dropped as though he’d been carrying tension and it suddenly was released. David felt that same tension leave his own body, just from that simple reassurance. Deep in the unfriendliest parts of David’s brain, he’d half-expected Patrick to show up with an apologetic smile and an explanation that the emotion of yesterday’s shoot had rendered him temporarily insane, that he’d gotten so into his character that he’d conflated their stories. But no, Patrick was walking toward him, his face almost shy. They greeted each other with a quick peck on the cheek, still uncertain of how open they were allowed to be with their relationship (don’t get ahead of yourself, David, this isn’t anything yet). 

“Hi, David,” Patrick said, his voice warm. 

“Hi, Patrick,” David breathed back, unable to keep the smile from his face. He’d had an ex tell him once that his smile ruined the aesthetic of his face, and David hated that despite knowing that his ex was a cruel, cold person, he hadn’t been able to fully push that comment out of his brain. But Patrick was looking at him with such _fondness_ that David was helpless in stopping himself. 

They easily fell into their usual rhythm of discussing the scenes of the day, keeping the other on their toes with quick retorts and smiling banter. The familiarity of it all pulled David back from the precipice he’d been on this morning, staring in the mirror and wondering if their working relationship would suffer because of last night, if he’d sabotaged the first project in years that felt like it meant something to him. As he and Patrick brainstormed ideas for how to approach the day’s first scene, David recognized the same warmth he’d felt when Patrick said ‘I trust you’ spreading through his entire body. He felt almost giddy. When they got into position to start shooting, Patrick shot him a wink, and David bit his lips hard, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. God, he was done for.

About halfway through the day, David was off by craft services, eating a far-too-full plate of food when he felt Patrick’s presence at his side. Struggling to swallow a probably unwise amount of cheese in one gulp, David coughed and sputtered. Patrick looked at him with wide, amused eyes. “Impressive. Very alluring,” he intoned, reaching for a peach and biting into it. David averted his eyes, because Patrick with peach juice running down his chin would absolutely send him into a cardiovascular episode, and they still had hours of shooting to do.

“I exude magnetism, I can’t help it,” David said back, glancing quickly to Patrick and catching him just as his tongue flicked out to lick off some excess juice dripping from the peach. Fuck fuck fuck. 

“Hey, so I wanted to ask,” Patrick said, his voice uncharacteristically nervous. The sound brought David out of his thoughts, which had very rapidly evolved into a myriad of imagined scenarios involving Patrick’s tongue. He nodded, and Patrick took a deep breath before plunging on. “Would you want to come over for dinner tonight? I’m making a new pasta dish, and I wanted to, you know, see if you wanted to come over. To have dinner. And come over.” 

Patrick was blushing furiously, and David tamped down a sudden urge to pinch his cheek. He was just so _tense_ and _adorable_ , and David grinned. “I’d love to come over. To have dinner. And come over.”

A smile broke out over Patrick’s face and he pushed David’s shoulder. “Shut up. That’s the first time I’ve asked someone on a date in a long time.”  
  
David raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Oh, this is a date? In that case, I don’t think I can make it.”

For a split second, Patrick’s face fell, and then he groaned and pushed David again. “You know what, I take it back. No pasta for you.” 

Still grinning and pushing each other like schoolboys, they made their way back to set. David couldn’t remember the last time he felt this light. Patrick didn’t regret what had happened, and was inviting David over, and they still acted well together, and it was all okay. David made a mental note to send Stevie a bouquet of flowers and wine for bringing him the best thing that had ever happened to him.

***

They agreed to each go home after the shoot, and that David would meet Patrick at his apartment at 8. After changing his outfit roughly six times, David grabbed his phone and dialed Stevie.  
  
“So did you fuck?” she asked, picking up after the first ring.

David froze, his mouth open. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to her at all after he and Patrick had gone for their walk last night, and he thought they’d been fairly discreet today.

Sensing his stunned silence, Stevie went on. “You were looking at each other like horny lovestruck teenagers today, it was pretty obvious something finally happened.”

“Okay, please don’t ever refer to me or Patrick as ‘horny lovestruck teenagers’ again, thanks so much.”

“So you _did_ fuck.”

David made an exasperated sound. “God, no, we didn’t.” David knew that Stevie would be able to hear the smile in his voice, and he didn’t even care. “I kissed him last night.”

“Oh my god, I _knew_ it! I knew something went down, so what happened?” 

David wandered around his room, feeling like the protagonist of every cheesy 90s movie he’d loved as a teenager as he recounted the previous night to Stevie. She sounded genuinely happy, and David wished she were there so he could hug her. 

“And then he walked me to my car and I went home,” he finished. 

“That is so adorable, I feel like I need a shower,” Stevie answered, but David heard the affection underneath the snark, and loved her all the more for it. “So what now?”

“Oh, right,” David said, feigning nonchalance. “He invited me over for dinner tonight, I’m about to head out.” He beamed when he heard Stevie’s answering shout. “I know, I know! I’m...I’m nervous though.”  
  
Stevie clicked her tongue. “I’ve been watching him look at you like a puppy dog for weeks. You have nothing to worry about.”

David’s response was cut off by the notification that his driver was nearly there. “I’ve got to go, but. Please just don’t tell anyone. I have no idea what the protocol is right now and I don’t want to do anything wrong.”  
  
“So, send a text to Alexis telling her you’re going to Patrick’s tonight, got it.”

“Fuck off,” David said warmly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“20 bucks says you and Patrick come to set together tomorrow.”

“Good night, Stevie!”

David was surprised when his Uber dropped him off at the address Patrick had given him. Considering Patrick’s success, David had assumed he’d be in a ritzy hotel, or a fancy apartment building in the center of the city. Instead, he found himself ascending the stairs of a nondescript brick building and walking through a very ordinary complex. Smiling, David shook his head. He should have figured. This was so Patrick.

Holding tight to the bottle of wine he’d brought, David knocked on the door and held his breath. Patrick pulled the door open, and David practically sagged in relief. It was addictive, almost, the way just a look from Patrick could bleed all of David’s anxieties out of him. The car ride over had been long enough for David to start panicking about what might go wrong, but those soft brown eyes eviscerated any worry. 

After being welcomed in, David moved through the modest apartment, looking at the little touches of Patrick hidden throughout: a guitar leaning against a stand in the corner, a stack of biographies on the coffee table, blue accents everywhere. 

“I just need five more minutes and this will be ready to go,” Patrick called from over the half-wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, and David made a noncommittal noise as he tried to memorize everything about the space. He noticed a small shelf of DVDs next to the TV and crouched down to see what had made the cut into Patrick’s modest personal collection. A few cinematic staples, a handful of movie musicals, and…

“You have all five seasons of _Woodland Hills,_ ” David said, his voice high as he stood quickly. He whirled around and saw Patrick’s gaze drop guiltily. “You have like 15 DVDs here with you, and _Woodland Hills_ is a third of that.”

Patrick chewed the inside of his cheek and looked down steadfastly at the pot of pasta. “Um, this is ready. Why don’t you open the wine, and,” he gestured to the table. His cheeks had flushed and he wasn’t making eye contact. David had a momentary flashback to when he’d found a large stash of hidden porn at an ex’s apartment, and how his ex didn't even bat an eye. Now Patrick was shifting around uncomfortably, and David felt a manic laugh well up in him. Sweet, lovely Patrick, embarrassed to be caught with David’s teenage television series. 

Smiling softly, David poured two glasses of wine and sat down, watching as Patrick plated their food and brought it to the table, still not looking at David. “So, um. I feel like I have some things I probably need to tell you, before we. Before anything else happens,” Patrick said, choosing to sit perpendicular to David rather than next to or across from him. 

A small siren sounded in David’s head, but he pushed it back and reached out, briefly covering Patrick’s hand with his own. “I absolutely want to hear whatever it is you have to say, but um, I haven’t eaten since like 1 o’clock and this smells amazing, so I’m really going to need to eat while you talk, is that...?” Patrick glanced up at David and nodded, a smile trying to make its way onto his face, despite the worry still in his eyes. David nodded back and took a bite. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed, head falling back. “What is this? Pistachio cream sauce?” He looked back at Patrick and then shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, um. Go ahead, I’ll eat and be quiet.”

Patrick choked out a laugh and picked up his wine, taking a long drink before steepling his fingers and staring intently at them. “So first of all, um. I’ve never done this before. With a guy.” He waited, almost like he expected David to run away in horror. David just took another bite and nodded gently, signaling him to go on. “I’ve had minor curiosities before, but I’ve never. It just never happened. And um. God, this is embarrassing,” he muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck.

David reached out again and gave Patrick’s hand a squeeze, trying to will Patrick to understand that literally nothing he said could possibly scare David off. He wanted to express that he was there for Patrick, but the pasta really _was_ fucking amazing. He took another large bite as he waited.

After a sigh, Patrick looked back at David and sheepishly smiled at him. “I just never thought I’d have to...so the thing is. You were the first guy I ever thought about, that way.” 

David swallowed and shook his head, uncomprehending. “I thought you said you’ve been curious before, I don’t -”

“ _Woodland Hills,_ ” Patrick said, cutting David off. “All of my guy friends talked about who the hottest girl was, if they wanted to get with Phoebe or Sheila, whatever. But I always was thinking, in the back of my mind, that it was Benji.”

Nothing that had happened over the course of knowing Patrick, not their kiss, not their on screen chemistry, not even Patrick telling him when they met that he liked the show could have possible prepared David for this. He dropped his fork and stared, utterly speechless for the first time in his life. Patrick was looking at him apprehensively, and barreled on. “I know, that’s really weird, I don’t know why I even told you that, it just seemed like a crazy coincidence when this film came up, and I honestly didn’t think anything would happen, but -”

David was out of his chair and pulling Patrick up into a crushing kiss. He fisted his hands in the back of Patrick’s soft blue sweater, frustrated that he couldn’t be _closer._ Patrick responded with enthusiasm, sliding his hands up David’s sides and stepping into his space, kissing back hungrily. Every nerve ending in David seemed to be lighting up, and he needed more, needed closer, needed everything. 

Patrick pulled back after a few long moments, his lips a wet pink. “The pasta is a keeper,” he said, breathing heavily. David laughed and kissed Patrick again, smiling too hard to keep it going for long. 

For a couple seconds they smiled at each other, and then David closed his eyes. “Okay. I have a few things I need to say now.” He felt Patrick’s hand move up to cup his jaw, and then felt lips on the skin under his ear. “This is important,” he said, quieter. Patrick’s lips were distracting, and David needed to make sure he got all of this out.

“You have my attention,” Patrick whispered, kissing David’s pulse point and sending a shudder over him.  
  
“Wait, wait, stop,” David said, and felt Patrick immediately stiffen up. “No, no. Just. I need to make sure I say this, and five more seconds of that and I won’t be able to.” He took Patrick’s hand and pulled him over to the couch, sitting with a bit of distance between them. “So. This is new for you, and honestly this is new for me too, because you are absolutely 100% a better person than anyone I’ve ever...anyway, I want to make sure you know we don’t have to, um, that there are no like, expectations from me about what happens here,” he said, waving his hand between them. “And that, um.” David closed his eyes. “We are going to have to talk about, like, big picture.” Cringing, he kept his eyes closed and kept going. “That sounds so dramatic, but we’re working together, and we need to um. I need to know what this is.” He hated it, hated that this was something he had to do, and hated that for once he was being responsible. But Patrick was different, and David didn’t hate taking care of him. He could have this conversation if it meant taking care of Patrick. His reputation, his image, his heart.

David cracked an eye open and saw that Patrick was watching him thoughtfully. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “I mean. We need to figure out what this is going to be, because we’re both, you know. In the public eye.”

There it was. David nodded, looking down at his hands. He’d had two kinds of partners: the ones who want to show him off on their arm to get something, and the ones who wanted to keep him secret. Patrick’s hand on his shoulder brought his gaze up. 

“I can’t speak for what you want, but I want this,” Patrick slid his hand down David’s arm and interlaced their fingers. “I want you.”

David marveled yet again at Patrick’s openness. Here Patrick was, at the edge of a brand new world, one that could potentially change everything about his future, and he was telling David exactly what he felt. Tears pricked David’s eyes. “I want you, too,” David whispered back.

Immediately, Patrick leaned in and kissed David, soft and slow and reassuring, bringing up their interlaced fingers and resting them over his heart. It was so incredibly tender that David gasped into the kiss, and Patrick took advantage, swiping his tongue along David’s bottom lip and then biting down. David gasped again, and Patrick pushed him back, half-laying on him as they kissed. Patrick’s lips worked down David’s jaw and then up to his ear. “Can I see you?”

Wide-eyed, David nodded, and they both sat up, and then Patrick stood and pulled David up with him. “Let’s go to my room,” Patrick said quietly, pulling David behind him. Once inside, Patrick turned and grabbed the bottom of David’s sweater, catching his eye and waiting for David to nod before pulling it up and off. Immediately, Patrick leaned down and licked an experimental stripe up the center of David’s chest. “Fuck,” Patrick breathed, and David squeezed his eyes shut. He was already embarrassingly hard in his tight pants, and Patrick’s whispered curses were sending spikes of want through him. 

“Wait, let me, I want,” David said, tugging at Patrick’s sweater until it was off as well. Patrick pulled them close together, their bare chests and torsos rubbing as their lips met again. David broke off and made sure he had Patrick’s eye. “We don’t have to do anything, Patrick, I swear. I just want to touch you, I want to feel you.”

Patrick nodded wildly and reached to open his own jeans, pushing them down inelegantly and gasping when David immediately went to his knees. “God, David, yeah, please,” he whined, hands tangling in David’s hair as David kissed Patrick’s stomach, the sprinkling of light hair under his navel, the top of his boxers. He looked up at Patrick and licked his lips.

“Can I?”

David was pulled up quickly into another harsh, biting kiss, and then Patrick stepped away, laying back on the bed. “You can, but you...can you get naked?” He sounded tentative again, and David immediately nodded and worked his pants open, pushing them down with his boxers and then standing at the foot of the bed, letting Patrick take him in with his eyes. Patrick’s tongue darted out and licked the corner of his lips as he trailed his eyes down David’s body. “David...fuck, you’re so...c’mere, c’mere,” Patrick urged, holding his hand out. 

Obediently David climbed onto the bed, laying on his side next to Patrick and humming when Patrick gave his hair a tug as they kissed. He felt Patrick’s other hand skim down his side and then pause at his hip, fingers drumming on the hot skin. David pulled back breathlessly. “You can tell me to stop whenever you want, okay?” he whispered. Patrick nodded, and David swung a leg over him and kissed down his chest, stopping at his nipples. Patrick didn’t react when David licked at one, but cried out when David’s teeth came down around it. Filing that away, David kept moving down Patrick’s body until he was at his boxers. He looked up and watched Patrick’s face as he peeled them down, just far enough to reveal his cock and balls. David couldn’t stifle a moan at the way Patrick’s cock, thick and heavy, slapped at his stomach after being pulled out. “Oh my god,” David breathed, dropping his head and kissing the base of it as his hand worked to push the boxers down and off. Patrick’s entire body jerked.

“David!” he groaned, fisting his hand in David’s hair. 

Keeping his eyes on Patrick’s face, David wrapped a hand around Patrick’s length and stroked him a few times before bringing him to his mouth and licking the glistening slit. Of course Patrick tasted good. David thought it was a myth that come could taste anything other than bodily, but of course Patrick was going to prove him wrong. It would only be the thousandth time Patrick shifted David’s entire worldview. David licked at the slit again, watching Patrick’s mouth open into a perfect O as he stared back. Still pumping, David dropped down to take the head, pressing the flat of his tongue to the underside and feeling Patrick twitch beneath him.

Pulling off, David tilted his head as he looked up. “Okay?”

Patrick spoke with great difficulty. “So good, so good.” The words sent a warm tingle down David’s spine, and he dropped his head again, taking more of Patrick this time, keeping his hand steady on the base of Patrick’s cock. He set himself to the task, sliding his tongue against the underside of Patrick’s length as he hollowed his cheeks and bobbed, trying to watch Patrick the whole time. Patrick looked like he wanted to watch David, but every now and again his head would roll back and he’d let out a guttural sound. David wanted to record it and set it as his alarm, to wake up every day to the sound of perfect Patrick Brewer, utterly wrecked thanks to him.

Finally, Patrick tugged at David’s hair urgently. “Close, close, I’m gonna come David, so good.” David met his eyes and pulled up slightly so he just had the head of Patrick’s cock in his mouth. He pumped his hand faster and dug his tongue into the spot where the bottom of Patrick’s cock met the head, flattening it and then licking, flattening and licking. With a long loud moan, Patrick finally spilled into David’s mouth, seemingly endless streams of come as Patrick’s hand tightened even harder into David’s hair. David worked him through it, softly sucking at the head until Patrick made an almost pained noise. “C’mere,” Patrick managed to get out, pulling him up.

David crawled up and looked down at Patrick, his face as open and unguarded as David had ever seen it. Patrick tried to tug him down into a kiss and David pulled back. “It’s not - you don’t have to, I have your -” He was silenced as Patrick gave him another hard tug and closed the distance. David made a surprised noise as Patrick eagerly licked into his mouth, and then moaned when he felt Patrick’s hand close around his still achingly hard cock. David pulled back. “Wait, wait, here.” He tugged Patrick’s hand up and licked it a few times, a trail of saliva pooling on Patrick’s palm.

“Jesus fuck,” Patrick whispered, and then kissed David again, his now slick hand wrapping around David and stroking him quickly, eagerly. 

David kissed back as best he could and then pushed his face into the crook of Patrick’s neck, tasting salt and sweat and Patrick’s cum still on his tongue. Panting, he rocked against Patrick, fucking into his fist over and over until he came in a few long bursts, his teeth set in Patrick’s shoulder. After realizing it, he unclenched his jaw and pressed a few kisses to the bite-mark, already bright red. “Sorry, fuck, I bit you,” he whispered.

“Don’t you dare,” Patrick said in a low voice. “That was...oh my god, David, don’t apologize to me, you, you’re incredible, you’re -” Patrick was kissing David again, deliberate and deep.

A few minutes later as they lay there in the semi-darkness, David curled up next to Patrick who was on his back, Patrick let out a quick laugh. David raised himself up and stared at him, trying to look offended. “You’re laughing after sex with me,” he said, surprised to hear how happy he sounded to his own ears.

Patrick kept laughing, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I thought maybe I was bi, but nope. Very gay. I’m gay.” 

David smiled and pressed a kiss to the purpling mark on Patrick’s shoulder. “Very happy to help you come to this life-altering revelation, but I think I probably should clean us up.” He moved to roll off the bed, but Patrick caught his hand. David looked back at him, a fresh wave of emotion rolling through him at the vulnerable smile on Patrick’s face. David pulled his hand up and kissed it, and then stood. After a second, he let out an exasperated sigh and turned back around, hands in the air. “I’ve never been here before, I don’t know where anything is.”

Laughing, Patrick stood and walked out of the bedroom. Almost casually, he looked over his shoulder as he left the room and said, “I think you should stay here tonight. If you want.” 

David followed him out of the room, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt, and then it hit him. He dashed back into the room and pulled his phone out of the pocket of his pants, typing a quick text before leaving to follow Patrick to the bathroom.

To: Stevie Budd  
_I owe you $20._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've made it to the (first) E rating chapter! 
> 
> thank you SO MUCH to those who have left comments along the way. i've been so motivated to get these chapters out quickly because of the lovely feedback. please feel free to let me know how you liked this chapter.
> 
> more story to come...


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Patrick talk through what this means for them moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just got back from vacation and wrote this little but necessary plot/filler chapter. back to the story (and smut) soon!

David insisted that Patrick let him do the dishes after they (finally) made it back to the table and finished their pasta. Alexis probably would have passed out if she heard how downright _eager_ David had been to do a household chore, but really he felt like it was the very least he could do. Patrick had invited David over, and cooked for him, and opened himself up, and now David was grasping for anything he could to demonstrate that Patrick hadn’t been wrong to trust him. Call it a leftover tendency from many a hookup-gone-wrong, but David always wanted to prove himself after sex, to somehow show that he could be worth more.

As he dried the last of the dishes, he felt Patrick’s warmth behind him and smiled softly. “Can I help you?”

“Thank you,” came Patrick’s voice at his ear.

Shaking his head and still smiling, David set down the pot and put his palms on the counter. “It’s just dishes,” he replied.

“No, I mean, you know. For this. For being here.” Patrick sounded fragile and small, and David’s heart hurt with how much he wanted to take care of him. He pushed down the momentary panic that accompanied the thought and turned around so he could look Patrick in the eyes, trying to gauge the quickest way to diffuse this situation. 

“Thank _you_ for the best pasta I have eaten in my whole fucking life.”

Patrick’s face changed to something lighter, and relief rushed through David. He knew this night was going to bring some heavy conversation, had even started it himself earlier, and he wanted to push the inevitable back as far as possible. That was the problem with showmances: it was impossible to keep the bubble for long. There were castmates and crew and friends and paparazzi, and keeping things quiet was next to impossible. David assumed Patrick would want to keep the relationship secret, another leftover impulse from past relationships. So where did that leave them? David took a breath, remembering what Patrick had said not an hour before. _‘I want you.’_ That was all well and good here in the confines of his nondescript apartment, but the outside world was different. 

A few minutes later they found themselves back on Patrick’s couch, David’s feet on Patrick’s lap. Patrick had been sorely disappointed to discover that David’s feet weren’t ticklish, while David had been a bit horrified that Patrick was touching his feet at all. They moved into a comfortable compromise, Patrick’s hands slipped up under the bottom of David’s black jeans so he could run his fingers through the hair on David’s calves. During a momentary lull in their conversation, David nearly dozed off until Patrick’s hands stopped on his legs. “David.”

That tone. David knew that tone. He met Patrick’s eyes and felt infinitesimally better. Patrick’s eyes were kind. Patrick was kind. He could do this.

“Yeah, I know,” David said, his voice a little weary already. 

Patrick pinched David’s leg in response. “Thanks for the enthusiasm, David, that means a lot to me.”

David made a wounded sound and tried pulling his legs back, but Patrick grabbed his ankles and brought David’s feet back to his lap. It took a great deal of willpower to shift David’s focus away from the ease with which Patrick had just manhandled him and to the more pressing matter at hand. “Go ahead,” he said. It was unfair of him to make Patrick take the lead on this conversation, he knew that. But if Patrick started, David could try to figure out his expectations and then match them without revealing too much of himself. He’d already started cracking open at the edges, and self-preservation was screaming at him to stop now before things became irreparable. 

After a moment and a deep breath, Patrick started. “I don’t really know what to do from here, and that scares me. I’ve always been someone who takes charge of things in my life, and this is just...you are new. This is new.” He shrugged, and David could see the way Patrick seemed almost irritated at himself for not knowing how to proceed. It was adorable and emboldening.

“This is new for me, too. I mean, I’ve hooked up with co-stars before, it’s almost a rite of passage in television,” he shook his head, “sorry, not the point.” David closed his eyes and swallowed. “I like you. I actually care about you. And that’s kind of really new for me.” Where the hell had all this honesty come from? So much for keeping things tightly wrapped and following Patrick’s lead. 

When David opened his eyes, Patrick was watching him with a soft smile. “I like you, too.” David felt himself blush and rolled his head back. God, he felt like a fucking smitten high schooler. Stevie had been right. 

Clearing his throat, David sat up and crossed his legs, needing to have a physical separation while he worked on wringing his heart out into Patrick’s hands. “I meant what I said earlier, I don’t have any expectations for what happens. But if this,” he gestured between them, “is going to be anything, I need to know what…” he trailed off. What did he need to know? What he was allowed to tell people? What Patrick wanted from him? What Patrick _saw_ in him? 

Patrick immediately nodded. As much as David wanted to take care of him, Patrick was better, more practiced. “I want this to be something, David.” His eyes were actually shining, like this was the big moment in their movie. It finally occurred to David that Patrick was such a good actor because he poured everything into each moment, exactly how he did in real life. David wanted to kiss him. “I don’t know what that means,” Patrick said, voice smaller. “I thought it was just a show crush, but I...it’s not. You’re not.”

David’s eyes had closed again. Patrick, so genuine and good and kind, and he wanted David. He opened them to find Patrick staring at his hands, kneading them together in front of him. David had seen Patrick do the same thing before big scenes, or while waiting to talk to Mutt about feedback. He knew it was something that only manifested when he had nervous energy. “Okay,” David finally said. 

Patrick looked up at him, eyes wide. “Okay?”

“Let’s figure it out. What do you want?”

That seemed to take Patrick by surprise. David would be lying if he said he was as confident as he sounded, but Patrick had a knack for making David brave.

“I want, I don’t know, I want to date you? Like normal people. God, I don’t know, I just want to be with you, have a regular relationship.”

Sweet Patrick. David tried for a kind smile, which likely was more of a grimace. “There are about a thousand things preventing us from having a regular relationship,” he said slowly. “You are straight as far as the general public knows, we are in a film together, we’re both moderately famous.”

Patrick’s eyes glinted. “I don’t know if I’d say we’re _both_ moderately famous, David.”

“Excuse you, I’m in the middle of rebranding,” David shot back, fighting a grin 

“Apparently so am I,” Patrick said, smiling all the way to his ears. David froze for a moment and then started laughing, adrenaline and affection coursing through him.

“Yeah, about that,” David finally said when he’d collected himself. “I want to be with you, too. Definitely. But I don’t want to push for anything, you know, publicly. I don’t want to put pressure on you to change your entire image.”

That drew a frown from Patrick. He sagged back against the couch and looked at David a bit helplessly. “I need to talk to my parents. That’s all that really matters to me. After that, I don’t care.” He smiled ruefully. “I hired Ray because I wanted to change my image and career. He got me this movie, so I guess he’s done his job.”

Wait. Did that mean Patrick wanted to talk to his parents and then, what, go public? David leaned in slightly. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to flip everything upside-down just for -” David cut himself off. _Just for me_ , he was about to say. “Until you are sure,” he amended.

Patrick slid closer, lightly running his hand up David’s arm to his cheek, then around to the back of his head to pull him in for a kiss. Kissing Patrick was a surprise every time, a revelation. This kiss was slow, a kiss just for the sake of kissing. They were both breathless when Patrick pulled back. “I’m sure, David. I’ve been wondering for a long, long time. You kind of made everything make sense.”

David felt a comfortable warmth spread itself around his ribcage, a familiar feeling whenever Patrick said exactly what David needed to hear. Then a bolt of panic flashed through David. What if Patrick’s career was ruined, because of him? He pushed it down when Patrick pulled him into another kiss. Acting with Patrick was the first time that David hadn’t doubted his instincts; maybe he should follow suit here and try to trust.

They shifted around on the couch until David was leaning against the arm, one leg pushed to the back and the other on the floor, Patrick laying back against his chest. David liked seeing Patrick from here, liked seeing the cowlick slightly off-center from his crown, the strands of hair that were darker than the rest, the small mole hiding at the nape of his neck. It was also easier to talk through the logistics of their relationship when he couldn’t see Patrick’s face. They decided that for the time being, they needed to keep things discreet on set. Stevie knew, Twyla knew, and David suspected a few of the other assistants did as well. But until Patrick had a chance to talk to his parents, they were going to navigate their relationship quietly. That would also give them a chance to solidify whatever _this_ was, before the storm.

The conversation drifted, and soon Patrick had turned over so he was on David’s lap, half-laying on him and kissing him with all the fervor and dedication that David had come to know underwrote everything Patrick did. David’s hands clutched Patrick’s ass through the pajama bottoms he’d put on, and he sighed into Patrick’s mouth. Patrick pulled back and gave David a quick look before standing and holding out his hand. David smiled and took it without a second thought, trotting behind him back to Patrick’s large, warm bed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Patrick's date night continues. Picks up right after chapter 8.

Patrick immediately resumed his position from the couch, crawling up the bed to straddle David, kissing at his neck and making small appreciative sounds. David knew by this time of night his stubble would be thicker and prickly, but Patrick didn’t seem to care. In fact, it felt more like Patrick was specifically focusing on David’s facial hair, and David shuddered when he felt Patrick press his tongue flat against his jaw and lick. 

“Patrick,” David choked out, hands firm on his ass. When Patrick pulled back and looked at him, David swallowed and steeled himself. He could take care of Patrick, he reminded himself. He wanted to. “We don’t have to do anything else tonight. Earlier was...a lot, and I don’t want to push you.”

Patrick’s answering look was almost too tender, and David looked up at the ceiling until Patrick gently said his name. “David. Thank you. I know you want me to be comfortable, and I appreciate you not pressuring me. But,” he shifted on David’s lap, pressing his hips down so David could feel him, hard again, “I want to.”

The air shifted as they surged toward each other, kissing more frantically than they ever had, stopping to laugh when their teeth painfully clanged together. Patrick’s face was joyful, open, and the most beautiful goddamn thing in the world. David rolled them over so he was on top and kissed at Patrick’s throat, desperate to leave traces of himself but stopping short of visible evidence. The last thing they needed was gossip in the makeup trailer. David shook the thought away and moved his legs so he was laying most of his weight down on Patrick. 

“What do you want?” he asked, voice high and breathy.

Patrick shook his head and pushed a hand into David’s hair, pulling slightly. “I don’t, I don’t know, I want _you,_ I want…” 

“Shh, it’s okay,” David cooed, leaning down to kiss Patrick’s left eyebrow which had furrowed. “We can do what we did earlier? Hands?” He wanted to be so gentle, to make this so good and easy and comfortable. _I want to take care of you,_ he thought for the fifteenth or thousandth time, he couldn't be sure.

“Yeah, yeah we can do that, let’s just,” Patrick tugged at David’s sweater again. David sat up and pulled it off, lightly tossing it onto a chair and checking to make sure it wasn’t going to fall to the ground before turning his attention to getting Patrick’s soft sleep shirt off. He immediately bent down and took a nipple between his teeth, testing out what he’d learned earlier. Patrick’s breath hitched at the contact, and then he let out a low whine when David bit down. Gorgeous. While he bit and sucked at Patrick’s nipples, David’s hands moved down to clutch Patrick’s ass again, pushing his hands between Patrick and the bed. 

“God, fuck David, that’s, that’s new,” Patrick breathed out, and David looked up at him.

“Never had your nipples played with?” David asked, a tinge of sadness to his voice. The answering shake of Patrick’s head sent a pang through David. Patrick was capable of so much more pleasure than he’d found in his life, and David wanted to wrap him up and spend hours cataloging all the ways he could make up for it. “Is this okay?”

Patrick bucked his hips up against David’s thigh, an eyebrow raised. “What do you think?”

David smiled and kissed a spot on Patrick’s chest, then looked at him again. “I need you to tell me if something isn’t okay, or if you like something, okay? I want this to be good for you.”

In two seconds, David was flat on his back with Patrick looming over him. Patrick held his gaze, slowly getting closer and closer until their lips were touching, but not kissing. “You’re making it good,” Patrick said, barely audible. David shivered. “I like this, David, god I love it, I never...I never knew,” Patrick said, voice stronger. 

“Do you want to fuck me?” David’s mouth snapped shut. He had absolutely no idea where that came from. Well, he knew where it came from, but he hadn’t had any intention of saying it yet, not on their first night together, and certainly not after he’d just told Patrick he didn’t want to push him.

Patrick’s eyes had gone wide. “David…” David’s mouth was already open to start an apology when Patrick cut him off. “Can I? Please?”

From there, things were a tangle of clothes being pushed off, rushed kisses, whispered questions seeking affirmation, until David was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, with an equally naked Patrick standing in front of him. David wondered if Patrick was changing his mind, now faced with the task so directly. Just as David was preparing again to apologize and cut things short, Patrick knelt in front of him, eyes blazing. The words died in David’s throat as he watched in what felt like slow-motion as Patrick leaned forward and took the head of David’s cock in his mouth. He was awkward about it, unsure how to move his head and clearly out of his depth, but it was so, so perfect. David’s hand moved to the back of Patrick’s head, scratching gently. “You are beautiful,” he whispered reverently, too captivated to even feel embarrassed at himself. Patrick’s eyes fluttered closed as he bobbed on the first few inches of David’s length, and he finally pulled back, opening and closing his mouth a few times.

“That’s going to take practice,” he said, sounding almost disappointed. David laughed and rolled his head back before pulling Patrick into a kiss. Patrick, who wanted to master any task put in front of him immediately, tenacious and dedicated, frustrated at not being an immediate expert in giving head.

“You can practice as much as you want, but that was so hot,” David finally said when they pulled apart again, now laying side by side on the bed. 

Patrick looked skeptical, but didn’t press the issue. “You’re going to have to guide me a bit here with um, what comes next.”

Nodding, David leaned in and pressed his forehead to Patrick’s. “I’ve got you. Can you get me lube and a condom?”

Given a tangible task to conquer, Patrick moved quickly, pulling both from his bedside table, then rolling his eyes at David’s feigned look of shock. “I’m an optimist, okay?” 

David grinned as he took the lube, then rolled onto his back, pulling one leg up. “It’ll be easier if I prep myself, but um, you can watch?” It was immediately clear that Patrick was very enthusiastic about that option, and he crawled to the foot of the bed, sitting back on his heels as he hungrily watched David spread the lube on his fingers and then circle his hole slowly. “Um, so I’m just going to,” David slipped the tip of his middle finger in, and watched Patrick’s face react, watched as Patrick’s entire body leaned slightly in as if to see better. Partners had been there while David had prepped before, but never with this much open eagerness. 

When David pushed his entire finger in, all the way to the last knuckle, Patrick’s breath came out in a loud huff. “That’s...oh my _god,_ David.” His voice dripped with desire, and that sent a wave of pleasure over David. He’d always loved affirmation, loved being wanted and adored and appreciated; it was a huge reason he’d stuck with acting. Coming from Patrick, though, it settled deep inside him and unfurled into warm tendrils throughout his whole body.

The next two fingers came quickly, and Patrick was panting by the time David pulled his hand out and rubbed the leftover lube over his cock a few times, sighing at the stimulation there after focusing so much elsewhere. Then he gestured for Patrick to come join him, and kissed him quickly.

“So, the mechanics now are basically the same, um, how do you want to…?”

Patrick looked overwhelmed already, his cheeks and ears dark pink, pupils wide and dark. “On your back,” he said, rolling on the condom. David picked up the lube and squeezed some onto Patrick’s cock, spreading it while keeping his touch as light as he could.

“Okay, c’mere, between my legs,” David said softly, planting his feet so his legs were spread wide. Once Patrick was in position, he looked at David questioningly. David nodded in response. “I’ve got you,” he repeated in a whisper, hands on Patrick’s shoulders.

The movement was slow, so excruciatingly slow as Patrick pushed himself in, his face going more slack the further he breached. David felt the familiar burning, but hardly paid attention, all of his focus on making sure Patrick was okay, that Patrick knew this was okay. Finally, Patrick’s balls were pressing against David’s ass, and they both let out a long sigh at exactly the same time. Their eyes snapped open and they burst into laughter at the unexpected moment of unison, Patrick’s eyes soft and David’s heart light. Patrick dropped his head into the crook of David’s neck, still shaking slightly as his laughter died down. “You feel, Christ, you’re so tight, how does it feel for you?”

“Perfect, it feels fucking perfect, except, um,” David felt Patrick stiffen above him, “I kind of need you to move?”

Huffing out another laugh, Patrick kissed David’s ear and then dragged his hips back before driving in again, still maddeningly slow. David could feel every inch of him, every ridge of his thick cock as he mapped out a new world. “God, it’s _so_ good, David,” Patrick hummed, picking up the pace just slightly.

“Like that, Patrick, like that, oh that’s good,” David murmured, sliding his hands down Patrick’s strong back to his ass, gripping it and trying to get Patrick to move faster. 

“Greedy already, David?” Patrick asked, and _fuck_ it wasn’t fair how hot it was to be teased while his cock was fully inside of David. 

“Hard not to be,” David managed to get out, moving to wrap his legs around Patrick’s back so he could roll with him, getting the angle that sent shockwaves to his fingertips and toes.

“You want me to give it to you?” Goddamn, Patrick was so sexy like this.

“God yeah, give it to me, Patrick you feel so good, fuck me, fuck me,” David panted, unable to stop from begging. Judging by the way Patrick’s hips kicked up speed, he’d made the right decision.

Patrick’s hand snaked between them and David gasped when he felt it on his cock, tugging just the right side of rough as he fucked into David. “Feels so good, god, so good, you feel amazing, want to give it to you.”

David moaned and rolled his head back, holding to Patrick for dear life as he was shifted up the bed with each thrust. He didn’t even have time to warn Patrick before he came, coating Patrick’s hand with come and feeling it spread between them as Patrick fucked him harder, feeling the way David clenched around him.

“Oh my god, fuck, you came, you came for me, oh my god, David, David, I’m gonna, I’m gonna,” Patrick said in a frenzy. 

While the aftershocks were still rolling through him, David blinked a few times to focus and nodded. “I’ve got you, c’mon, it’s okay, give it to me,” he urged, and watched in bliss as Patrick’s eyes screwed shut. Patrick’s hips stuttered, and he bit his lip sharply as David felt his cock pulse inside him, coming into the condom. “Good, Patrick, so good, that’s so good,” he hummed, rubbing his hands up and down Patrick’s back soothingly as Patrick’s breath slowed.

Without a word, Patrick kissed David’s collarbone and rolled over, gripping the condom as he pulled out. For a few moments they lay there side by side, staring up at the ceiling while their pulses normalized. Then Patrick reached between them and took David’s hand. 

It was a long time before they moved.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Patrick get back to filming. The end of the shoot brings a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO SO SO much to everyone who has commented! those really help to motivate me to keep going with the story. please continue to share your thoughts!

When the alarm sounded in the morning, David groaned and tried to roll over, but found he couldn’t. Something was laying across him, trapping him. For a brief second, panic welled up as memories flashed through him of waking up restrained, and then he heard a soft snuffle next to him. Patrick. His pulse began to slow, and he wriggled out from Patrick’s arm to turn off his phone. Everything was slightly groggy, and David shook his head a few times, trying to get his bearings. It had been well past 3 a.m. by the time they’d finally stopped giggling and snacking and trading stories and secrets and whispered confessions, and David honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a night like it. Probably because he hadn’t. After they’d cleaned up, neither one of them had tried to initiate anything past the occasional kiss, and David found he didn’t even care. It had been the most intimate night of his life, not even including the sex. 

“Patrick,” he whispered softly, running a finger down Patrick’s forehead to his nose, his lips, his chin. “Patrick, hon, time to get up.” Immediately cringing, David was relieved that Patrick hadn’t stirred yet. The pet name had slipped out without him even thinking of it. He tried again, shaking Patrick’s shoulder lightly. “Hey, Patrick.” The other man finally started to stir, letting out a series of little sounds that made David grin. “C’mon, I know you’re a morning person, wake up.”

Patrick frowned, his eyes still closed. “Morning person when I get decent sleep,” he said, voice sleep-rough. “Somebody was making me laugh til the middle of the night.”

David bit his lip, hearing the fondness that colored Patrick’s complaint. Leaning in, he kissed Patrick’s temple, overcome with the tender intimacy of being allowed to share this moment of Patrick slipping from sleep to wakefulness. “I’ll go make you some tea,” he hummed.

The rest of the morning went by easily, and soon they were on their way to stop by David’s before going to set - he was absolutely  _ not _ showing up in yesterday’s clothes, incorrect. The driver let them out a bit away from set. They’d discussed it: if anyone asked about them showing up together, they could say that David’s place was technically on the way from Patrick’s and they’d decided to carpool. However, they’d also decided they wanted to avoid lying as much as possible, so this was easier.

Stevie gave both of them a wide, shit-eating grin as soon as she saw them. “Morning, boys. How are we today?”

David’s mouth opened to retort that it was none of her goddamn business thank you very much, but Patrick got there first. “Pretty tired, actually,” he said simply, giving David a wink and heading off to get his wardrobe and makeup for the first scene of the day.

“Wow, Patrick is looking good for someone who is tired. He’s almost glowing, wouldn’t you say?” Stevie said, nudging David.

“I’d say to shut up,” David replied, mouth crooked in a smile that he was trying to hide. Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a $20 and stuck it down the back of Stevie’s shirt. “We’re not telling people right now, so please don’t say anything obnoxious today, thanks so much.” He started to stride toward wardrobe and then huffed, turning around and giving Stevie a quick hug. 

“Did he fuck you hard enough to concuss you last night?” she said, obviously surprised as she hugged back a little stiffly, and David snorted.

“Bye!”

***

The week seemed to fly by. All of David’s fears about their relationship messing with their acting quickly dissipated as it became clear that the opposite was happening. Their scenes were crackling with energy and attraction, in perfect contrast to the bubbling tensions under the surface of their earlier ones. David thought more than once to himself that Mutt’s process of filming sequentially was a stroke of brilliance. It had also been relatively easy to keep things professional between takes when both he and Patrick were able to channel their real feelings into each line of dialogue, each lingering look.

On the last day of principal photography, David was sitting in his trailer, going over the scene he’d tried to rehearse last night in his apartment with Patrick. It was to be the last scene of the film, when Jack and Peter decide at the end of the third day after their meeting that they want to be together. The scene was going to take place at the same bench where earlier Jack had poured his heart out and Peter had walked away. David was desperate to hit the beats of this scene, and Patrick had indulged him briefly, despite having instituted a rule about not discussing the film outside of the set. They’d spent about twenty minutes on it, just getting through the first part of the scene, until Patrick had climbed onto David’s lap and thoroughly distracted him.

David wandered through the park, trying to figure out how it had only been a week since he’d walked this same path before kissing Patrick for the first time. When he got to the bench, David sat and closed his eyes, trying to calm the jitters in his stomach. He opened his eyes at the feeling of a steady hand on his shoulder. Patrick had sat next to him on the bench, and was watching him with a look that meant he knew what David was thinking. 

“It’s going to be great,” Patrick murmured, squeezing David’s shoulder before letting it go. “I still trust you.”   
  
The first time Patrick said that, warmth had spread through David. Now, that warmth was familiar, ebbing and flowing but always present. David nodded and squared his shoulders, letting out a breath. “I know. I just  _ really _ want to get this right.”   
  
“You will,” Patrick said matter-of-factly, sounding so sure that David didn’t have much choice but to believe him. Patrick glanced around, seeing that the crew was chatting and not paying them much attention. “I spent a long time last night reading over this scene when I left your place, and I really want you to listen to the lines, okay? They’re Peter’s words, but I realized it’s exactly how I feel.”

That took David aback, and he barely had a few seconds to process before suddenly things were in motion, cameras moving into place and Mutt stepping in front of them to give some last-minute direction. 

The scene was a long one, and it was taking longer than anticipated because Mutt kept calling cut, wanting to change the camera angles or adjust the lighting. David was feeling a bit worn until they got to the lines Patrick must have been talking about. Only half-focusing on reacting as his character, David listened as Patrick spoke Peter’s lines.

“I’ve spent so much of my life since I moved trying to be what people thought I was, or thought I should be, because I didn’t know. I had no idea who I was anymore. And it wasn’t until I met you again that I realized - you were the key. I couldn’t figure out who I was until I found you.” Patrick was looking steadfastly at David, clasping his hand and crowding him, the words almost sounding like a plea. “I don’t need any more time to think. You are what I want, and it took a long time for me to realize it, but you’re what I’ve always wanted. I’ve been searching for you since I left. I’ve been searching for you forever.”

David had a line, but he realized as he tried to speak that he’d started to cry. Breathing through it, he pulled Patrick’s hand up and gave it a lingering kiss. “I’m glad I waited for you,” he finally said, tears coloring his voice.

“Cut!” came Mutt’s voice, and David went to drop Patrick’s hand, but Patrick held on for another few seconds, not speaking.

“Are you actively trying to murder me right now?” David whispered, and Patrick laughed, letting go of his hand. David wiped at his eyes and turned to listen to Mutt’s notes on the end of the scene before they had to do another few takes. The rest of the takes were good, but David knew the emotion of the first one was the best they’d had of the whole shoot. 

After getting the ending shot of the film, a far shot of Peter and Jack walking hand in hand over a hill at the edge of the park, Mutt called everyone together. David tried to listen to his speech, he really did, but Patrick kept brushing their hands together, and  _ that _ just wasn’t very fair. Mutt called a wrap on the shoot, letting everyone know that the studio would be in touch for any post-production needs.

“We did it, David. The first movie of the rest of our careers.” Patrick sounded a little dazed, and he pulled David into a tight hug. When he pulled back, he opened his mouth to say something, and then his eyes caught something over David’s left shoulder and his jaw dropped.

David looked around quickly, and didn’t see anything that warranted that kind of reaction. Turning back, he raised an eyebrow, but Patrick was releasing him, stepping to the side and approaching a pair of people who were milling around in the end-of-shoot chaos. David had assumed they were extras, until he heard Patrick speak.

“Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?” 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick's off with his parents, and David is panicking. Stevie helps (or doesn't).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the response to this has been so lovely, i'm SO thankful for all the comments and encouragement! a special shoutout this chapter to the folks at the Rosebudd for your constant flow of motivation, kindness, and general enthusiasm.

“We had a week. A _week,”_ David moaned, balled up on Stevie’s couch. 

Stevie came back to the couch with a bottle and two glasses of whiskey, sighing as she sat down. “It’s not over, you don’t know that,” she said, her voice relatively free of its usual sarcasm. David loved her profoundly for all the shit she gave him, but he also loved her for knowing when to lay off a bit.

Groaning again, David pulled himself tighter, hoping maybe if he tried hard enough this time he’d succeed in disappearing altogether. “Stevie, you didn’t see it, you didn’t see his face. He was so shocked, and then he just...left. Didn’t say anything to me, just went off with his parents, and now he’s going to realize I was a mistake and go back to his normal life and that pretty redhead and his leading man roles and I’m going to languish alone here in your apartment.”

“Okay, first of all, there’s no way I’d let you live on my couch, so that part is definitely not happening,” Stevie said, the snark creeping back in for just long enough. The predictability of it gave David a quick wave of comfort. “Come on, do you honestly think Patrick is capable of that?”

David closed his eyes and pictured Patrick’s face right after they kissed. He tried to remember exactly how he’d looked when he finally managed to get more than half of David’s dick in his mouth. He heard Patrick’s words right before the big end scene. _‘I realized it’s exactly how I feel.’_ All the fight was slowing leaking out of David. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in a small, truthful voice. He opened his eyes to see Stevie looking at him as she so often did, like he was an idiot but that she loved him anyway. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “It’s not that I think Patrick is a bad guy, he’s the best person I’ve ever met probably, but it’s just that. Um. I’m maybe not, like, good? Enough? For him.”

He’d almost anticipated Stevie being an asshole and agreeing he wasn’t, or else a slap to the arm and a loud contradicting statement to tell him of course he _was_ good enough. What he got instead was a rare contemplative look, concern etched in the space between Stevie’s lovely brown eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice was serious and gentle. “I don’t think he cares if you’re good enough. I think he just wants you.”

The tears David had very carefully kept internal stood no chance against a sincere Stevie. He pressed his lips together and shook his head as they started to fall, and in a second she was right next to him, an awkward hand on his shoulder. 

For a few minutes, Stevie just sat with David, a slightly stiff hand on his shoulder, while he cried. He knew it must be excruciatingly embarrassing for her, that he should just suck it up and move on like he had after every failed relationship. He sniffled and sat up. “It’s just that things were going so well, and I thought maybe it was going to be different this time? Like it might actually be real.”

Stevie didn’t answer right away, just looked at him for a long moment before finally speaking. “I’ve been watching you onscreen and off. It’s real to him, David.”

Save for when they acted together, David couldn’t remember ever seeing Stevie be sincere for this long. More than anything else, it was her tone that snapped him out of his wallowing. “You think so?”

She rolled her eyes and gently punched his shoulder - _there she is,_ he thought. “I’m not answering that question because you know the answer.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “In the meantime…” she said, pushing the glass of whiskey closer to David. “We could get very, very drunk to celebrate a wrap on our film.”

David slapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh my god, I didn’t even - fuck, I meant to say congratulations, but this whole _Patrick_ thing happened,” he fumbled. “Holy shit, we wrapped the film.” Yeah, yeah Stevie was right. Patrick didn’t say anything to David before leaving with his parents about celebrating together (Patrick didn’t say _anything,_ period, his brain supplied unhelpfully) so David should absolutely feel okay getting drunk with Stevie instead.

Grinning, Stevie picked up her own glass, half the amber liquid already drained, and shot back the rest before pouring herself another. David suspected she’d already had one glass before he arrived, so he had some catching up to do. 

Back in their days on _Woodland Hills,_ David and Stevie celebrated every season wrap together. The night they finished shooting the first season, David had called up a connection at a nightclub in town who snuck him and Stevie in, despite neither of them being of age. They’d laughed and danced and gotten embarrassingly drunk together, warm on the glow of a season of work. When the show had its final wrap 5 years later, they pulled a mattress into the living room of David’s new apartment and cried together over popcorn and ice cream and terrible romantic comedies. Sometimes David liked to remember Stevie like that, soft and vulnerable and sad. She’d never have admitted to it, of course, but David liked knowing that Stevie felt the same stinging loss at the end of the project that led them to each other. Now his chest was hurting for a different reason entirely.

As the next few hours wore on, the panicky pang in David’s heart dulled to a manageable ache. Bothersome, sure, but controllable. The whiskey certainly helped. He was standing on the couch, doing an impression of one of Mutt’s absurd directions, when his phone started ringing. Stevie picked it up and her eyes widened. She turned it around and thrust it up into David’s face, but his vision had gone a bit hazy around the edges so he couldn’t quite see. After blinking a few times, the name on the screen came into focus. Fuck.

“Don’t wanna talk to him,” he said, dropping hard onto his ass on the couch. He was full-on sloppy drunk. He hadn’t even considered the possibility of Patrick reaching out to him tonight, and was definitely not clear-headed enough to navigate whatever pathetic breakup was being thrown his way.

“Yessss you do,” Stevie slurred, pushing the phone into his lap. “Been talking about him nonstop for fucking hours.”

He stared at the phone screen until the incoming call ended, then closed his eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t wanna know.”

Stevie cocked her head, her left eye drooping the way it always did when she was about a half hour from passing out. “Huh?”  
  
“I don’t want to know what he’s going to say. Just want to -” David was interrupted when his phone started to ring again. “Oh my god, oh my god, Stevie, what do I do?”

“Tell your boyfriend you’re mine for the night,” Stevie laughed, falling back and upside-down onto the arm of the couch, bending like a grotesque Cirque du Soleil performer.

“He’s not my - I’m not talking to him!” David cried out, tossing his phone onto the floor a few feet away until it stopped ringing. Shit, why had he kept drinking after the buzz calmed him down? Everything was turning sideways, and he was fairly certain he was going to be sick. 

David took a few deep breaths, willing his stomach to stay put. A chime indicating a new text sounded from where his phone was lying facedown on the ground. Stevie was still bent backwards and as she tried to right herself, fell sideways onto the floor. She locked eyes with David, and then lunged for his phone.

“Fuck off!” David shouted, jumping down and getting there just in time. He felt triumphant for all of two seconds before realizing holding the phone meant he’d have to actually _look_ at whatever message Patrick had sent. Steeling himself, he turned the phone over in his hand and looked down.

_Sorry I ran off on you like that. Obviously wasn’t expecting to see my parents today._

Just as David finished reading the text, another one came through.

_We had a long conversation over dinner._

David felt like every single chipped off piece of barrier was starting to circle menacingly around him again. This was the end. He’d been broken up with before, he could do it again. It was fine. He was fine. 

His phone chimed again.

_They want to meet you._

The room suddenly felt way too small. What the hell did that mean? Did Patrick tell his parents? Did that mean...was Patrick serious when he said he wanted to be with David? Stevie had asked if David thought Patrick was capable of faking those things, of just up and leaving him. Desperately, with everything in him David wanted to believe Patrick was different, but the evidence was overwhelming that David wasn’t enough to keep people around. He realized he’d been waiting all along for the other shoe to drop. It would be so easy for Patrick to chalk it up to a showmance, to getting caught up in the emotions of the shoot, to say David wasn’t a good idea, that David was a mistake. He’d heard all of it before. It wasn’t anything wrong with Patrick, it’s just everything was wrong with David.

Except now Patrick’s parents wanted to meet him. Patrick. _Oh god I missed him,_ David thought. He knew that was silly, he’d seen him just over 4 hours ago. But after Patrick had walked away without a word, it had felt like a chapter closing, like it was really the end. The stupid butterflies from the early days of shooting flooded David’s stomach as he read through the texts again. _It’s not over._

“So?” Stevie’s voice broke through the tumult in David’s brain, and he looked up, almost surprised to find her there. 

“His parents want to meet me,” David said. The butterflies were causing mayhem in his stomach.

“Oh my god!” Stevie replied, a dopey smile spreading across her face. God she was drunk. David loved drunk Stevie. He loved Stevie in any condition. Especially the Stevie who wrote beautiful movies that brought him and Patrick together. Holy shit, things might actually work out.

Grinning, David looked back down at his phone as it chimed again.

_Are you alive? Did I inadvertently kill you by saying my parents want to meet you?_

A delighted laugh bubbled up in David, and he started typing out a message just as he realized the butterflies wreaking havoc in his stomach might actually be the whiskey. He hit send just in time to run to the bathroom and throw up.

_alive and verrry drunjk, yes i’ll meetr ypour ppaerents_

When he finally made it back, there was a message waiting for him.

 _Oh boy. Please drink lots of water and keep some aspirin by your bed._  
_Have a good night, David. We’ll talk tomorrow.  
I can’t wait to see you._


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After meeting Patrick's parents, David and Patrick talk about what's next.

The car was quiet as they drove, a comfortable silence accompanied by soft instrumental piano playing through the speakers. Patrick had insisted on driving to the restaurant himself instead of calling a car, and David was glad for it now as they drove back to David’s apartment, fingers intertwined on David’s thigh. The evening had gone exceptionally well. Of course, David’s bar for excellence was fairly low, considering the last time he met the parents of someone he’d been seeing was when they’d accidentally run into each other at the same sex club. But tonight, tonight had been something else entirely.

Marcy and Clint Brewer were the kind of people David had seen in every show he’d been in, but thought didn’t exist in the real world. They exuded warmth, from their soft eyes to their clasped hands in greeting to their fond laughter. At one point, sometime between salad and lobster (David had insisted on taking them to the nicest seafood restaurant in town, because “you told me your dad wanted to be a fisherman, so that will impress him, right?”) Marcy had looked right at Patrick and said “I’ve never seen you look so happy” before reaching across the table with both hands and laying them on top of David and Patrick’s. David hadn’t been sure initially if he was supposed to touch Patrick or not in front of his parents, but Patrick had easily laced their fingers together on the tabletop as soon as they sat down, sending rolling waves of calm through him. 

The conversation flowed easily, a bit to David’s surprise. Patrick had talked about his parents before, but David had always imagined them to be stiff, the type of people who lived in the 1950s and ate TV dinners in front of their 12-inch screens; the type of parents who perhaps were too strict but churned out perfect Boy Scout sons. But once they’d sat down, all David’s hastily patched up walls quickly fell away. He wondered if it was just something about all Brewers in general that made him feel safe, or if it was the way Clint kept looking at David and then quickly blinking when his eyes started to shine, and how Marcy kept glancing down at their joined hands and smiling softly to herself. All David knew was that he already loved these kind, warm people, and desperately wanted them to feel the same. 

He loved them even more when they embarrassed Patrick, talking about his high school obsession with _Woodland Hills_ and how it used to be impossible to get Patrick to leave the house on a day a new episode was airing. When Patrick flushed and stumbled through an explanation, David felt charmed all the way to his toes by all of them. 

When the time finally came to leave, after David couldn't reasonably find excuses to stretch out the evening and luxuriate in the utter bliss of unfettered acceptance, Clint gave him a hug and came away misty-eyed again. Patting David's shoulder, he cleared his throat and smiled. "I’m glad to know our boy is so happy. Thank you for...for everything."

David had opened his mouth to respond and was startled when he realized his own cheeks were wet. God, his emotions were a hair's width from the surface these days. He quickly swiped his face and nodded, managing to get out a "thank you" before Marcy gathered him in her arms where he was helpless against the soft tears that fell against her softer embrace. 

Patrick squeezed David's hand, bringing him out of his thoughts and back to the present. "Everything okay?" Even Patrick's quick sidelong glance carried that Brewer sincerity, and David wiped his eyes quickly, determined to keep the tears from falling this time.

"Yep, everything is great," David responded, rubbing his thumb over Patrick's. "Your parents are. I mean, they're." He shook his head, laughing lightly. "I don't know, not what I was expecting? But also exactly what I would expect from people who made you, so." 

Deep in David's meanest subconscious, he'd assumed the meeting would go poorly and his rapidly evolving relationship with Patrick would end. Everything still felt new enough to be fragile, and David historically broke people quickly. But meeting Patrick's parents solidified what David had already started to suspect: this wasn't like anything he'd experienced before. This one might actually make it.

David felt an uncomfortable cold start to creep around his shoulders when the antagonist part of his brain tried to take over, and he swiftly pushed it down by pulling Patrick's fingers to his lips. He loved the way Patrick's eyes crinkled just slightly when David surprised him, so David took the time to kiss the tip of each finger, watching Patrick's face open and bloom with pink. It was the kind of gesture he'd seen other people make but never quite understood before. The past few weeks had brought dozens of experiences like that to David, moments when he understood at long last the things he'd done as characters. It was too soon, much too soon, but David was already thinking about what their future might look like. Red carpets, with Patrick insisting on boring plain suits; reading each other's potential projects, consulting on if it fit their current direction; or perhaps setting out on a new venture together.

Patrick gently extracted his hand from David's, and to David's surprise he realized they were parked outside his apartment. "You're staying over, right?" David asked softly, wanting to hear it from Patrick's mouth. 

Patrick gave him a considering look, teasing him with his eyes before he even spoke. "Right after introducing you to my parents? I don't know, that might give you the idea that I'm serious about you." His face was almost radiating joy, as though his composed exterior was chinking from the force of the light behind it. The utter giddiness of it made David need to kiss him, to show him he felt the same.

When he pulled back, David smiled and dropped his gaze, reaching to open the door. "Get your ass out of the car."

"Wow, things go well with my parents and suddenly you're bossing me around," Patrick responded through a smile, though he did get out, stopping to grab the overnight bag he'd brought along.

David grabbed his hand while they walked inside, feeling an unquenchable desire to touch Patrick in whatever way was available. "So you're saying things went well with your parents?" David said, trying to tease, but the words came out much more raw than he'd intended. He wanted Patrick's parents to like him, to love him, to give Patrick reassurance that he wasn't making a mistake.

The gentle squeeze of Patrick's hand grounded David as he unlocked his apartment. He nearly dropped the keys when Patrick leaned in close to his ear and whispered "things went _so_ well, and they're only getting better once I get you inside." Unfair, unfair.

After David accidentally asked Patrick to fuck him a week ago, things had clicked into place for them fairly quickly. Every time David touched him, Patrick reacted like he'd been shocked by a livewire, and neither man could get enough. Ever dedicated to perfecting his craft, Patrick had spent a great deal of time practicing taking David in his mouth, and though he was still frustrated that he couldn't take the whole thing, David had absolutely no complaints. Tonight though, after the rollercoaster of the past two days, David felt more vulnerable than he had even at the beginning.

As soon as the door was closed, Patrick crowded into David's space, biting up his neck softly. David closed his eyes and grabbed Patrick's shoulders, pushing him back a few steps. When he opened his eyes, Patrick looked startled. "Wait, I just." Two deep breaths. "I think we probably should, um, talk? Again? About...this," he finished, releasing one of Patrick's shoulders to gesture between them. He knew Patrick, knew that he was feeling high on the evening, and knew that it would be much easier to just fall into bed and celebrate that things hadn't been a total disaster. But now, with the reality of how much David wanted this to last crystallizing in his mind, he wanted to do the one thing he'd never had to do in a relationship - communicate. 

Patrick's eyes went soft and kind, and he kissed David's cheek and nodded. "Yeah, yeah. You're right, we need to talk. Can we," he glanced down at where he'd dropped the bag. "Is it okay if we get ready for bed and then talk?"

As they quietly moved around the apartment together, David was sure they were both thinking about what was next for them now. Patrick had said his parents were the only people he truly cared about talking to regarding their relationship, and now David was wondering if he would have said that had he known how quickly his parents were going to find out. It occurred to David that they'd never actually discussed what would happen at the film's end. The principal cast and crew were expected to be available for post-production needs, but that didn't necessarily mean sticking around town. David was from here and didn't have to relocate for the film, but he hadn't even thought about Patrick, and the house he'd probably left behind in LA. Would he want to go back now?

Once they were both in their sleep shirts and soft pyjama pants, they lay in bed on their sides, facing each other. It was remarkable how quickly it became comfortable, natural, to share a bed with Patrick after the electric newness of the first night. But now, some of that initial uncertainty was creeping back in. Sensing David's anxiety, Patrick reached out and trailed his fingers up and down David's bicep. "David," he said, his voice soft and full.

David nodded. "We didn't really ever talk about, um. Concrete steps. For our relationship, for what we would do, after the movie ended." Not for the first time David wished he had a script to work from, something easier than plucking out his insecurities one by one and handing them over to Patrick. "I still don't want to push you for anything," he added quickly. "But I need to...we need to figure out what's happening now."

For a brief moment David wondered if he'd ever stop feeling this painfully vulnerable, and then Patrick was scooting forward, slipping a knee between David's thighs and gripping his arm tighter, pushing into his space. "What's happening now is we are going to keep doing this," he said, kissing David's forehead, "and we're going to keep doing this," he kissed David's jaw, "and we're going to keep doing this," he kissed David full on the mouth, gentle, probing, reassuring. When he pulled back, he smiled, his whole face lighting up again.

David wanted desperately for that to be enough, but he needed to know, needed to hear it. "So we…?" He let it trail off, let Patrick fill in the question David couldn't voice.

"We are still very much together, David." Patrick was still smiling, but almost incredulously now. "Did you think I was going to introduce you to my parents to, what, break things off right after?"

"It's happened before," David muttered, feeling chided and childish and so, so relieved.

"David," Patrick said, and now he sounded serious. "I want to be with you, I meant it when I said it before and I mean it now. My parents loved you," he added, face going fond.

"That's all very nice, but." He swallowed. "But what do we _do_ now?" They no longer had a project to act as cover for spending all their time together, and David still didn't know if Patrick was even planning on staying in town. "I mean, are we dating publicly, or am I supposed to keep things quiet? Are you moving back to LA? I know you _'want to be with me'_ but I need to know more than that. I need you to tell me what you want me to do." He was breathing hard by the end of it, all the pent up frustration he didn't know he had bubbling up. Patrick was watching him, his face expressionless. 

"I'm sorry, David," he finally said, voice quiet. "I haven't...I didn't realize I wasn't being straightforward with you." Moving even closer, Patrick brushed his nose against David's. "When I say I want to be with you, that's what I mean. I told you, my parents were the only ones I really needed to talk to, and they kind of took care of that for me." His breath was warm and familiar against David's lips, speaking low and close as though his words weren't life-altering. "Let's do this. For real."

"For...real," David echoed. 

Patrick nodded. "Let's do it. Date, go out, be together. I don't give a damn what anyone has to say about it, because I - " he cut himself off. "Because you are more important." 

The unsaid part of the sentence folded itself neatly into David's heart, sparking the hope he'd so desperately been trying to contain. "You're sure?"

He expected a dramatic pause, or for Patrick to give a big speech that sounded like it came from one of his romcoms, but he simply nodded once, immediately. "I'm sure." The hand that had been clutching David's arm slid up behind David's neck, winding into his hair. "My apartment here is on a month-to-month lease, so I was thinking," he brought his lips to brush David's, "I'd stay."

A wild laugh moved through David’s chest, and he managed to stop it before it came out. “You’re serious. After a week with me, you’re...you’re staying?” This wasn’t what happened to him, he wasn’t the person someone like Patrick _stayed_ for. 

Patrick crowded even further into David’s space. “It’s been more than a week, David.” David opened his mouth to protest, but Patrick leaned in again, cutting him off with another kiss. “I mean, it’s been the entire shoot. I’ve known this whole time that there was...something. That I wanted you.”

David didn’t know what to say to that, how to respond to Patrick’s open face and words and heart, so he leaned back in and kissed him hard, pouring everything he couldn’t say into it. A part of him wanted to keep pushing, to have Patrick state explicitly what he meant by wanting to be with David, or to beg him to break it off now rather than let David fall further. The rest of him, a much bigger part, let himself be washed away by Patrick’s steady kiss, steady hands, steady presence. They kissed and kissed and kissed, until David found himself on his back, Patrick laying atop him, pressed together from knee to shoulder. Patrick’s eyes were bright when he looked down into David’s face.

“You look perfect like this, David,” he said, voice a low hot growl. “God, I can’t believe - I need - David, I -” Patrick sounded frantic, each sentence being cut off by a new one.

“Shh, I know, here,” David hummed, gently rolling them sideways so he could sit up and pull off his clothes. He’d changed six and a half times before settling on an outfit to wear for meeting Patrick’s parents, and in retrospect he should have thought more carefully about how easily removable they were. The thought occurred to him as he fought against his complicated layers and very narrowly avoided toppling off the side of the bed. Patrick’s happy laughter as he stripped himself easily nearly made up for it, and then they were finally laying side by side, skin to skin. David shook his head, unable to keep the smile from his face as he looked at Patrick, staring back with pure joy. “What?”

“I like this,” Patrick said, as though it explained everything. David thought maybe it did.

“Will you...I want to try something,” David said, ducking his head a little.

“I think the last week should pretty well indicate I really like it when we try things,” Patrick said back, running a hand over David’s side. That was true; they’d gone through a few positions already, experimenting with what they both liked, finding their rhythm. And then Patrick had begged so beautifully the first time David opened him with his mouth and his fingers and his cock. 

“I want to ride you.” David’s voice had gone high and breathy. “I want you to lay back while I fuck myself on you, while I get us off.” Patrick’s eyes went wide and dark, and he nodded before surging in, kissing David hard until he was on his back with Patrick straddling him. Laughing, David broke the kiss. “I don’t think you understand the mechanics of me riding you if this is how you’ve arranged us.”

“God, sorry, just, _fuck_ David,” Patrick groaned, dropping down to bite at David’s neck, harder than he usually did. 

“Yeah, that’s - god - that’s the idea, but you are kind of pinning me down?” David gave his hips a quick buck, trying to see if he could displace Patrick, and Patrick responded by grabbing David’s hips and pushing them into the bed. Oh. “Okay, um, fuck? That’s very hot, but, I - ah ah - really want to ride you tonight,” David persisted, trying to stay coherent while Patrick mouthed his nipple.

Finally, after ages, eons, millennia of Patrick moving his mouth over David’s chest, he rolled over onto his back, hands going up behind his head. “Okay, David,” he said, voice even. It pissed David off, just a little, that Patrick could sound so unruffled after sounding wrecked before. 

“Gonna fucking have my way with you,” David grumbled, reaching into his nightstand and quickly spreading lube over two fingers, roughly pushing them into himself and hissing. “Gonna ride you until you come for me, and then I’m gonna mark your chest,” David breathed. They’d done a bit of this, too. David had been delighted to find out that Patrick easily topped from the bottom and bottomed from the top, to find how naturally they fell onto the same page.

“Yeah?” Patrick replied, shifting a bit, flexing his hips so his cock moved a bit where it rested red and thick against his stomach. “You gonna use my cock to get off?”

“Mm,” David affirmed, rising up higher on his knees and adding a third finger, not being gentle at all with himself. Everything inside him was feeling soft and tender and vulnerable, and he needed to do something to keep himself grounded, to stop him from melting at Patrick’s feet. “Gonna ride you so good, hold my hips,” he said, straddling Patrick with knees on either side of him and rolling the condom quickly over his length. Patrick did as he said, sending a thrill over David’s skin along with the sharp bite of Patrick’s blunt fingernails. “Just like that, good,” he grunted as he reached back and lined Patrick up. “Now pull me onto your cock, hard.”

A second passed in which Patrick waited to have David’s eyes on his own. He nodded, just slightly, and then David’s vision whited out as he was forcefully tugged down onto Patrick, his thick cock pushing up hard and deep. “Oh fuck, David,” Patrick choked out, and David blinked a few times until everything came into focus, Patrick beautiful and flushed at the center of his vision.

“Just like that, now hold my hips, but I’m gonna fuck myself, okay? Can you do that for me Patrick? Can you hold still while I grind on you?”

Patrick nodded wildly, his fingers tightening on David’s hips even more. The knowledge that it would bruise made David moan again. 

“That’s right, good,” David praised, leaning forward to brace his hands on Patrick’s shoulders so he could rock himself back and forth, adding a lift and drop every few seconds. “God, feels so good, your cock is so fucking perfect inside me like this.” Every thrust forward drove his cock over Patrick’s stomach, and the friction was just barely enough to tease him, to make everything sharper. Patrick was letting out tiny breaths and curses, and David had to drop down, to bend forward to kiss him. “You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he pushed into Patrick’s mouth, fucking himself back onto him at the new angle. “Now grab my ass?” he said, less of a command than before.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick panted, reaching down to hold David firmly, starting to help him with the movement. David groaned when he felt Patrick start to fuck his hips up, pushing deeper into David. “S’good, it’s so good, fuck, David, wanna fuck you so hard.”

“Do it,” David breathed. “Fuck me, make me feel it.” 

Patrick shifted a bit, planting his feet on the bed to give him leverage, and held David up a few inches as he started to thrust hard over and over. “I - oh god - I love this so much, David, fuck, love this with you, it’s so good, you’re so good.”

David closed his eyes. He’d set out tonight to keep the emotions from spilling out, but Patrick was fucking him so gorgeously, like he wanted them both to feel good, and David couldn’t help it. “I want you, god Patrick, I want you.”

“I’m here, I’m right here,” Patrick whispered, his hips still snapping up. 

“Stay, I want you to stay, don’t leave me,” David cried out, burying his head in Patrick’s neck as he felt Patrick’s rhythm start to falter.

“Won’t, I won’t, I promise I won’t, I wanna, I’m gonna - David, I’m gonna -”

Picking up his head, David caught Patrick’s eye and nodded. “Please, please, do it, I’m so close too, c’mon, come inside me, do it for me, Patrick!” David reached between them to give himself a few rough strokes and then he was coming, feeling Patrick spasming with him. Long moments passed with aftershocks rolling through them, causing them both to shiver.

Once he felt stable enough, David gingerly lifted himself and rolled to the side, pressing a kiss to Patrick’s shoulder and then pulling the condom off him. He stood, tying it as he walked to the bathroom for a washcloth. When he came back, Patrick looked equally blissed out and exhausted. It made him look younger, and David found himself aching for the years of missed opportunities for Patrick, to not experience what he deserved. 

Patrick made a move like he was going to take the washcloth, but David gently pushed him back down. “Let me take care of you,” he whispered, carefully cleaning up the come splattered over his chest, then wiping his softened cock. As he moved, Patrick watched him with a fond smile. “There, perfect,” David said, snuggling in once they were both clean. 

“Um, could you...can I be the little spoon? Please?” Patrick sounded tentative, hesitant. It broke David’s heart, to think Patrick still struggled to ask for what he wanted.

“Of course you can, sweetheart,” David said, not catching the pet name in time. “Let me take care of you,” he repeated, pushing himself against Patrick’s back and kissing the nape of his neck. “Thank you for staying with me. And um, for introducing me to your parents.”

“Not going anywhere, David. You’re in my life, which means you’re in theirs.”

David fell asleep that night with his hand over Patrick’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to EmuFume for the encouragement to finish this chapter, and to the drunk girls in the bathroom at the Rosebudd.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picks up 4 months after chapter 12. It's time for Patrick and David to start thinking about what comes next, for their careers and their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter absolutely would not have been possible without the brainstorming and encouragement of this_is_not_nothing.

"I cannot  _ believe  _ you let them dress you in something other than blue," David said into the patch of skin under Patrick's earlobe, punctuating it with a bite that made Patrick hiss.

"Look who's talking," Patrick mumbled, shifting around in the car's backseat until he could get his hands on David's ass. "You wore  _ green.  _ I thought, ah," Patrick stuttered when David licked up the shell of his ear, "I thought you were morally opposed to wearing anything other than black and white."

"It was  _ olive,  _ thank you, and I had to wear something to complement the cream palate you were in!" David knew very well he was failing at sounding accusatory, in large part thanks to his sprawling hands that couldn't stop roving over Patrick's chest. 

They'd been in the car less than two minutes before putting up the partition between themselves and the driver, and David silently patted himself on the back for convincing Patrick to get them a car service in the first place. In the four months since the wrap of the film, Patrick had allowed David to call them a car only twice. Something about "not abusing our resources" or some other equally generous reason. But David knew how good Patrick looked when styled properly, and he was fairly certain that after today's promotional photoshoot for the film, he'd want to get his hands on him as soon as possible. 

Apparently, David wasn't alone in the desire. "You looked fucking delicious, whatever color it was," Patrick murmured into the joint of David's shoulder and neck. The words sent a tingle over David's skin, and he shifted to pull Patrick up onto his lap, making Patrick laugh and grip his shoulders. "I have a suspicion this isn't exactly a legal way to ride in a car."

David buried his face in the spot exposed by Patrick's open top buttons on his shirt and elected not to make a joke about how else he'd like Patrick to ride in this car. Instead, he breathed in deeply, luxuriating in the distinctly Patrick smell that was so familiar and comforting after all this time. The past four months had brought press junkets, interviews, photoshoots, reshoots for the movie, and a sense of deep security that David never thought he'd find. Sometimes he tried to conjure up the uncertainty he'd felt at the beginning of filming, and he could only find the profound satisfaction that he'd done it, gone out on his own and found more than he'd been looking for.

Speaking of what he'd found, Patrick was pressing small kisses over David's hair and forehead. David tipped his head up and smiled at the open expression looking back at him. Slowly, so slowly, Patrick leaned down to press his forehead against David's before breathing against his lips, "I love you."

"I love you, too." 

It came more easily now. The first time Patrick said it, they'd been next to each other at the sink in his apartment, brushing their teeth and bumping shoulders. Patrick had cocked his head slightly, spit, and then turned to look David square in the eye. It took David aback, but Patrick had just smiled warmly and kissed his cheek with a soft, "you don't have to say it now." Later that night, under the cover of blankets and darkness and sleepy kisses, David whispered it into Patrick's palm. 

Since then, David had lost count of how many times the words left his lips, but knew that each time he felt a little less afraid. Patrick was good and kind and smart and talented and Patrick  _ loved  _ David. Even David's demons couldn't doubt him, not after Patrick stood up in front of a dozen interviewers over and over to tell them that yes he was dating David Rose, yes they met filming their latest project, yes they were happy, no that's none of your business, yes we are excited for the film release. David loved to watch Patrick maneuver in the interviews they'd done, how easily he handled himself, how quick he was to take David's hand or brush his shoulder. Patrick was unafraid, and that made David brave.

The car rolled to a stop and Patrick left David's lap with a quick kiss to his nose. They were back at Patrick's apartment for the night, and David couldn't wait to get inside. Today's photoshoot was the last bit of press they had to attend for the next few days, and David was feeling exhausted from it. Whereas Patrick left events feeling keyed-up and energized, David had always felt like every last ounce of energy had been sucked from him and he wanted nothing more than a dark, quiet room and a bed. And if Patrick wanted to work out his extra energy with David on that bed, well, that would be just fine.

Once they made it inside, David immediately collapsed onto his side of the bed -  _ I have a side of the bed  _ \- and pulled out his phone. Patrick had busied himself making tea, so David took some time to look through his inbox. More than half his new messages were from Ronnie, passing along various projects that had expressed an interest and dropping not-so-subtle hints that it was time David start thinking about what was next. He knew he ought to be excited; he'd never gotten this much attention before, and the film wasn't even out yet. But thinking about his next project meant making more decisions about his life with Patrick. Things had been so  _ easy,  _ even with all the extra press surrounding the story of their relationship, and David wanted to revel in it just a little bit longer. Patrick had already gotten several outright offers, but had given Ray the directive to keep Patrick in a hold pattern for now, not accepting but not turning down any potential projects. David sensed that Patrick had the same desire to keep things easy, if only for a little longer.

When Patrick came over to the bed, he'd already stripped down to his boxers and was carrying two mugs of tea. David wildly thought of how domestically pornographic it looked and was forced to distract himself by licking up the center of Patrick's chest as he took one of the mugs, nearly causing both of them to spill. Once the tea was safely accounted for, David picked his phone back up.

"Ronnie is really starting to lay into me about getting my next contract," David ventured, trying to sound nonchalant and utterly failing.

"Yeah? Ray too. He doesn't like to sit still for very long."

"I would have no idea from speaking to him," David deadpanned, grinning when Patrick snorted some of his tea. "Have you thought any more about what you're leaning toward?"

Patrick took another long drink, considering. "I'm intrigued by the sci-fi one. It's so unlike anything else I've done," he finally answered slowly. David could hear the eggshells they were walking on start to crack.

"Yeah, I remember that one. I think it sounds perfect, actually. A great follow-up project to this, make sure people know you're still versatile."

"Oh, I'm definitely versatile," Patrick quipped, and this time it was David's turn to snort into his tea. "What about you?"

David shook his head and closed his eyes. "I don't...it's all a little overwhelming, I think. I don't know." He kept his eyes closed when he felt Patrick's hand on his thigh, rubbing a soothing line up and down. "Thinking about the future. Our future, the future of my career, what my family wants…"

"David. You know I love your family. But it's not about what they want." Patrick sounded insistent now, and David opened his eyes to see utter confidence in Patrick's gaze. "That's why you did this movie in the first place, right? To set out on your own. And you fucking did it, David." The curse sounded so out of place, normally reserved for when Patrick was out of his mind with arousal. Now, it served as an exclamation point to Patrick's belief in him. "And as for our future, I'm not planning on letting you go any time soon, so don't let that be a factor either. Whatever happens, we'll figure it out."

David wasn't capable of more than a small "oh" at this sudden impassioned speech.  _ I'm not planning on letting you go.  _ God, how had he managed to make all the right decisions to end up in this man's bed and heart and life?

"So. What are you leaning towards?" Patrick asked again.

"Um." Still a bit flustered, David flipped through some of the emails he'd received from Ronnie. "There's this one," he said quietly, handing the phone over and letting Patrick read the synopsis and creative team. He watched as Patrick's eyes grew wider.

"You have to do this one," Patrick breathed. "Oh my god, it's perfect for you."

"Right, it's just." How was David supposed to explain the deep fear that crept up any time he thought about leaving the city he'd come to know, the city that brought him his first job, his best friend, the project that gave him Patrick? "It's filming in LA. And I've never...I know that's probably stupid because you've been filming there for years, but I kind of am freaking out? About leaving. My family, Stevie, the studio."

Patrick didn't respond right away. His eyes glazed over a bit and he set down his mug before turning back to David and tugging at his sweater. "Off, please," he said in a low whisper. "These too," he said, pulling at David's jeans. After a few moments, David was down to his briefs and was being eased onto his side. Patrick's arms slipped around him as he pushed against his back, pressing against him from ankles to shoulders. Once Patrick had David completely wrapped up, he pressed a kiss to David's shoulder and whispered at his ear. "You are allowed to freak out. I freaked out before coming out here. It's not stupid. But can I tell you something?"

David had been completely stripped of his barriers when Patrick peeled his clothes off. It still struck David how much Patrick  _ saw  _ him, how much David let himself be seen. He nodded.

"You are so brave, and talented, and deserving. You can do anything." Patrick peppered David's shoulder with more kisses, then nudged the nape of David's neck with his nose. "What do you want?"

That was the question, wasn't it? David found himself wanting so much, he wasn't sure he could contain it anymore. "I want to take the part." His voice came out small and almost broken.

"So take it," Patrick responded softly. His breath was warm and familiar against David's skin. "David. I've been thinking." Patrick must have felt David tense in his arms, because he quickly kissed his neck and went on. "What would you think about moving in with me in LA?"

Several lifetimes passed in the time it took for that question to register in David's mind. Patrick wanted David to move in with him. Patrick wanted David to be with him in LA. Patrick believed in him. Patrick. Not trusting himself to look Patrick in the eye, David gently pressed back against him and laced his fingers with Patrick's on his chest. "Are you sure?" he heard himself ask.

"Absolutely," Patrick whispered into a spot behind David's ear. His hands had started to trail over David's stomach and chest, like he needed to convince himself David was really there. "I want to be with you. I've been thinking about what life would be like back home without you, and I - but I didn't want to push you. I wasn’t going to ask until you decided that  _ you  _ wanted to go, for yourself. I'd never ask you to give something up for me, David. Never." 

David pulled one of Patrick’s hands up to his lips and kissed the pad of his index finger. “Yes,” he pressed into the soft skin before sucking it into his mouth. “Yes,” he said again, and then he needed to be looking at Patrick, couldn’t bear to not see him. When he turned over, Patrick’s entire face was glowing. Suddenly David suspected that Patrick had been waiting longer than he’d let on to ask this question, and it was impossible to not be kissing him. With everything in him, David pulled Patrick close and pressed urgently against his lips. He was never as good with words as Patrick was, not without a script in front of him, but this, this he could do. He let himself fall into the kiss, following Patrick and leading him at the same time, licking into his mouth and then sucking Patrick’s tongue between his lips. Patrick couldn’t get close enough, David needed him  _ closer,  _ and he broke away long enough to say so. “Closer, I need, I need more, Patrick, please,” he begged, and Patrick nodded before rolling away for a moment. David hardly had time to whine before Patrick was rolling back with lube and a condom and kissing David again, much more gently than before.

“Can you turn over again for me?” Patrick whispered into David’s mouth. “I want to hold you like that.”

David gave Patrick another lingering kiss before turning onto his other side and facing away while he listened to Patrick open the lube and slick his fingers. A cool finger probed David’s entrance, and then he felt Patrick’s warm lips back on his shoulder, whispering wordlessly against him while he worked him open. Patrick took his time with it, giving David one finger until he was clenching around it, and then working in a second. David was canting his hips back by the third finger, desperate for more, deeper, now. 

“I’ve got you, David, I promise I’ve got you,” came Patrick’s voice from behind him, and then a strong hand was lifting one of David’s legs slightly as Patrick lined up and pushed in slowly, slowly.

“Ohhh,” David breathed, his entire body opening for Patrick. When Patrick bottomed out, David lifted his leg higher, reveling in the feeling of being joined by Patrick’s cock inside him while Patrick was pressed against his back. “I can feel you, Patrick, I can  _ feel  _ you.”

Patrick wrapped his arms around David again, pulling him tight against his back as he started small circular motions with his hips. Every movement was kindling added to the fire in David’s veins, and then Patrick’s voice was at his ear. “I can feel you, David,” he said, his voice husky. “You feel good, you feel perfect, god.”

With a whimper David started to push his hips back against Patrick with each small thrust, and Patrick lifted his own leg to get deeper. The pace was slow, Patrick’s cock dragging deliciously inside of David as he moved. “Like that, keep going just like that, so good,” David choked out. It was unhurried and deliberate, Patrick drawing the pleasure out like molasses. David gasped when Patrick’s hand slid down over his abdomen, blunt fingernails brushing against his skin tantalizingly close to his cock, but Patrick didn’t touch it. Instead he moved his fingers over David’s thigh and then to where his own cock was pressing in. David felt Patrick’s thumb at the top of his hole, pressing against the rim as his cock moved in and out. “Patrick...oh god,” David cried, his hole fluttering to try and accommodate the intrusion. He heard Patrick’s breath catch behind him as the tip of his thumb pressed in, and then David’s vision went white for a moment.

“David, fuck, you’re so perfect, I need, I need to see you, c’mere,” Patrick panted, pulling out and pushing David onto his back. David’s legs automatically fell open for Patrick to settle between them, lining up and pushing back in while he stared down at David in awe. “You’re so...David, you’re…”

“I love you,” David said, his voice surprisingly strong and unwavering. He watched it wash over Patrick’s face and felt how Patrick’s pace quickened just a bit. For all the times David had said it, he very rarely said it first, and never during sex. But this, right now, felt like he and Patrick were on the precipice of something, and for once David wanted to be the one to take the first leap. 

“I love you,” Patrick said back, barely audible, before dropping his head to David’s neck and rocking against him over and over. Patrick’s hands were tight on David’s hips, and they were close enough now that every thrust pulled Patrick’s stomach over David’s cock, giving him the tiniest bit of friction to take off the edge. When Patrick pulled back to look down at David again, his eyes were bright. “Can you come for me, sweetheart?”

That alone nearly did it for David, but he nodded and reached between them to grasp his leaking cock and gave it a few tugs, matching the ever-quickening pace of Patrick’s thrusts inside him. “I’m close, I’m close,” David murmured, and then Patrick drove into him exactly the way he knew he needed to. Crying out, David fisted himself harder until he came onto his stomach, tiny spurts of it pooling while Patrick shifted and followed him into his orgasm. 

“Ahh, god,” Patrick bit into David’s shoulder as he came, his hips still pulsing. He stayed inside for a long stretch after he finished, just breathing against David’s skin. Eventually David felt Patrick’s lips working from one shoulder across his chest to the other, and then he pulled away enough to look David in the eye. “That was so good,” he managed before dropping down to give David a long, sloppy kiss.

Patrick pulled out and tossed the condom in the bin, then grabbed the wipes he’d started keeping next to his bed, since they found neither of them much liked to leave the other’s side for a long while after sex. He carefully cleaned David’s stomach and then rolled him over to wipe his stretched hole, placing a small kiss at the top of the cleft of David’s cheeks. Once they were both clean to David’s satisfaction, they curled up facing each other. Patrick’s fingers danced over David’s ticklish side, and David watched the way Patrick’s chest slowly lost its pink coloring. He felt so utterly content and loved and  _ right.  _

“So. Are we really going to do this?” David asked, his mouth quirking with the smile he couldn’t keep at bay with Patrick looking at him all gooey and blissed out. “LA, I mean?”

“We’re really going to do this,” Patrick said. He kissed David’s forehead, his nose, his chin. It had become a favorite path for Patrick, and David was nothing if not indulgent. A few more minutes of traded kisses and whispers later, Patrick rolled out of bed. “Food,” he said by way of explanation, and David’s heart swelled again. Yep, he loved this man.

***

The next morning, Patrick gave David a lazy blowjob while David tried to type out a response to Ronnie, with strict instructions that he wasn’t allowed to come until the email was sent. The past months had given Patrick plenty of practice and he was now expert at taking David all the way into his throat, which was normally a fucking fantastic development, except now when it made David’s hands shake and he had to keep erasing and retyping. 

Patrick pulled off and replaced his mouth with his hand, kissing David’s thigh and looking up at him. “How’s that email coming, David?” he asked with an absolutely sinful hoarse voice that should not be allowed. 

Shaking his head, David typed out a few more words and tried to keep his hips still when Patrick took him into his mouth again, tongue swirling over his slit. “ _ Fuck,  _ Patrick, I’m - I’m trying!” He hissed at the retaliatory pinch Patrick gave his thigh. Okay, this was doable. Patrick was here. He was being incredibly distracting, but he was here. David finished the email, giving Ronnie the go ahead to contact the necessary people for the project David wanted, and letting her know he was planning a move to California in the near future. When he finally pressed send, he tossed his phone to the side and grabbed Patrick’s face, pressing his fingers against Patrick’s cheeks to feel his cock through them. “Ready?” he asked, waiting until Patrick looked up and nodded slightly. David nodded back and gripped Patrick’s hair to hold him still as he fucked up into his mouth. Patrick opened up gorgeously for him, taking him deep, and David was coming in a matter of seconds. 

Patrick pulled off with an obscene smack of his lips and crawled up to kiss David and push his taste back into his mouth. David rolled them over without breaking the kiss and reached between them to take Patrick’s cock in hand. The whines and moans against his lips were incredibly gratifying as David worked Patrick through his own release. Once they could both breathe again, Patrick pushed on David’s shoulders. “Shower. You smell like sweat and come. And I smell worse.”

With a laugh, David ducked down and licked up Patrick’s neck. “And whose fault is that?”

Patrick grinned and rolled them over again, pinning David’s wrists next to his head. “Yours. It’s not my fault you woke up looking so damn sexy.”

The teasing compliment sent a fond warmth through David, and he pulled Patrick into another kiss before pushing him off. “Okay, okay, get off me, let’s go.”

The shower passed in fits of giggles and kisses and fighting over who got to stand under the spray. Afterward, David knelt on the bathmat and carefully toweled Patrick off, pressing kisses to each bit of newly dried skin. He stood to finish with his chest and arms, and then Patrick pulled him into a hug, getting himself wet again from David’s still-dripping body. David was going to comment on how Patrick essentially rendered what he just did useless, but then Patrick captured his lips and it didn’t seem very important.

Somehow they both managed to dry off and get dressed. Patrick sat at the kitchen table and cast an anxious look to David. “Am I ready to do this?” he asked, phone in hand.

David crossed over to him and kissed the crown of his head. “That sci-fi movie won’t know what hit it. Make the call.”

Patrick caught David’s hand and kissed it before dialing. “Hey, Ray, it's Patrick. So, I have some news.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you to the validation hours team at the Rosebudd. you make me feel right.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What comes next for Patrick and David?

When the announcement came that their film had been selected for the Sundance Film Festival, life seemed to speed up and pass in a series of chaotic swirls. The move to California happened without incident and David and Patrick enjoyed a solid 72 hours of peace in their home -  _ our home,  _ David kept thinking and then grinning like an idiot - before the news broke. Now, every weekend came with five new requests for an interview or photoshoot or podcast appearance. Although David hated watching his own press coverage, he loved all the new material being thrown at him of Patrick. Patrick on a late-night talk show, proudly talking about the film and how happy he was with David. Patrick on a two-page spread in an entertainment magazine with an article about going from Hollywood heartthrob to getting in touch with his own heart. Patrick in bed at night whispering all the same things he said in public, but this time with his lips against David’s jaw or chest or cock or fingers. 

Of course, on top of the press for  _ Quit the Garden  _ (Stevie and Mutt had finally managed to agree on a title after a months-long battle), David and Patrick also now faced the prospect of new projects. When Patrick was officially signed on to the sci-fi film within two weeks of moving back to LA and David still hadn’t heard anything back about the part he wanted, David started to get nervous.

“Why hasn’t Ronnie called me back yet? They probably went with fucking...Jake Gyllenhaal or something. Why did I think they’d even call me in? God, I didn’t even get to fucking audition, and now the other projects I was looking at have already cast and I’m going to have to go back to stupid guest roles as cyberstalkers and ex-boyfriends and - ”

David’s rant was cut off by Patrick’s arms wrapping around him. They’d been in their house for a little over a month now, and this was not the first (or second, or fifth) time David had started down this slippery slope. Invariably he would start catastrophizing his entire future, and then Patrick would swoop in and calm him with reassuring words. But nice words didn’t give someone a career. Nice words didn’t get you a part. “Hey,” Patrick said, and at least he had the decency to sound a bit worried. “If this one doesn’t work out, you have other people reaching out to you. You aren’t going back to anything.”

Despite the desire to stay hysterical and wound up, the feel of Patrick’s arms paired with his logic slowed David’s heart down just a touch. “But I want  _ this  _ one,” David whispered back. And he did. He shook his head and pushed back out of Patrick’s arms, spinning around and walking to the large sink, staring aimlessly at the dinner dishes. “Pretty fucking stupid of me to think they’d seriously consider me for a Paul Thomas Anderson film anyway.”

Patrick’s annoyed huff gave David the in he was looking for, and he whirled back around. “What? Are you saying before  _ Quit the Garden  _ you would have ever considered me for a role like that? No, because nobody takes me seriously, nobody fucking thinks I can do it! And what if they’re right? What if this film comes out and I’m…” David blinked rapidly against the tears that traitorously welled up. “And I’m a fraud after all.”

In two steps Patrick was in front of David and holding his face firmly, his eyes blazing. “I love you, but you need to shut up and listen.” David made a weak attempt to move but Patrick held him steady, stepping in to crowd him back against the counter. “You and I both know that you aren’t a fraud. You’ve seen the footage from this movie, you know that it’s good. That  _ you  _ are good. Whatever this is,” he momentarily dropped a hand to gesture at David, and for a perverse moment David wanted to laugh at how similar the move looked to something he himself would do, “it’s not about our movie. You can panic and freak out about what’s coming next, but I can’t let you say that what you made with me was anything less than what it was. Do you understand?”

It sounded almost like a challenge. David looked back into Patrick’s eyes and then slowly nodded, crumpling against him and dropping his head to a shoulder. The truth of it was David was just so damn tired. He was exhausted all the way down to the deepest, softest parts of his soul. Months and months of being exposed and watched and interviewed had piled on to the stress of worrying about his professional future, and then when he started to agonize in earnest he felt terrible for being more concerned about that than Patrick. He was happy, of course he was happy, happier than he’d ever been in his entire life. But the adrenaline was starting to wear off and the panic swiftly moved in to replace it. He’d never faced this level of scrutiny before, and it had left him feeling chafed and raw and far too open to the world when he’d just learned how to open up to one person.

“I’m sorry,” David said quietly, his forehead still resting on Patrick’s shoulder. “Things have been...a lot, lately. And I guess I thought maybe Ronnie sending the reels from our film would make a difference.” 

Patrick’s hands wound around David’s shoulders and he massaged him lightly. “You don’t have to be sorry. Just maybe let me know when you’re at a 5 so we can talk about it before you spiral to an 8 or 9, okay?” 

David laughed against Patrick’s shoulder and lifted his head to kiss him quickly. After pulling back, he was about to make a comment about what else was an 8 or 9 when his phone started to buzz in his back pocket. Still smiling, he pulled it out and looked down. His eyes widened and his heart suddenly tried to relocate to his skull. “It’s Ronnie.” Patrick stiffened and then moved to stand next to David, wrapping his arms around his middle and resting his chin on David’s shoulder.

“Answer it. I’m here.”

It took another 10 seconds for David’s brain to communicate the message to his fingers, and then he was holding the phone to his ear and listening to Ronnie talk about logistics and screen tests and dates and times and contact information, but nothing was quite making sense. 

“Ronnie,” David said quickly. His voice sounded commanding and in control, and he closed his eyes.  _ Yeah, I’m a good actor.  _ “Do they want to see me or not?”

Everything after that was mostly drowned out by the sound of Patrick whooping and jumping around the kitchen, slamming his hands on the counter and shouting “I knew it!” over and over again while David grinned and tried to listen to the details. Finally he was forced to push Ronnie off the phone with a promise to carefully read and immediately respond to the email she was about to send him. Immediately Patrick grabbed his hands and pulled him into the middle of the room, dancing and whirling in wild giddy circles while David laughed and laughed. It wasn’t over. He was going to be okay.

***

Patrick never took his hand out of David’s as they made their way down the red carpet (“it’s not really a red carpet, though,” David had whined to Patrick before getting out of the car). Every few feet they had to stop and pose for another round of cameras, answer a few excited members of the press, and David could feel the nerves rolling through his body in waves, and sensed the same jittery energy in Patrick’s tight grip. Neither of them had seen the film in its entirety yet, and while Patrick had attended events bigger than this, both men knew that this night carried more weight than any other premiere they’d attended. Patrick seemed especially tense, and David wondered if he was more apprehensive about the film than he’d let on.

As they reached the second to last stop before making their way into the theater, a journalist stepped forward with a knowing look in her eye. “Patrick, David, hi, Amy Zidzik of the  _ Salt Lake Tribune.  _ David, recently, there have been some rumors flying that you’re in talks to star in the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, can you say any more about that?” 

With a sly grin, David turned to Patrick and raised his eyebrows. Patrick smiled back and shrugged. “You know, Amy,” David said, turning back to her and trying to school his excitement. It had been less than 3 hours since he’d gotten off the phone with Paul (and fucking  _ Maya Rudolph  _ had wrangled the phone to tell him what a fan she was, sending David into a momentary blackout) to finalize things, and he’d been bursting all night, just waiting for someone to ask. “I have an inside scoop,” he said, dropping his voice and stepping a bit closer. “Make sure you tweet it before one of these big-name publications grabs the story. The rumors are true.” He winked and stepped back, loving the way her eyes lit up. He heard Patrick laughing next to him and thought  _ this is it, this is the happiest moment of my life.  _ Here he was at a respected film festival with the absolute love of his life, about to watch the movie that changed his path forever, mere hours after securing a role with one of the most respected directors working. Things literally couldn’t get better. 

David’s nerves settled down a bit as they took their seats in the theater. The room buzzed with anticipation, and David felt a wave of gratitude that he’d ended up seated between Stevie and Patrick. Most of the primary creative team was here, with the notable exception of Sebastien, and David felt a deep pleasure that yet again Sebastien had faded into the background of his new life. Stevie squeezed David’s hand and then looked past him to Patrick, giving him a nod and a wink. David whipped his head back and forth between the two of them. “Okay, I don’t like whatever is going on here,” he announced, removing both his hands from theirs. “Why are you two suddenly conversing with your eyes?” Another exchange occurred then, provoking David to cross his arms and slink back into his chair. “Fine, pretend I’m not here.” Of course he wouldn’t admit it, but it gave him a bit of a thrill that his boyfriend and best friend were close enough to annoy him together. 

After they finished whatever it was they were communicating, Patrick carefully took David’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Hey, David. Before the movie starts, I wanted to ask you something.”   
  
David rolled his eyes as Patrick let go of his hand, certain he was being set up for a joke that no doubt Stevie was in on. But then he turned and Patrick was out of his chair, down on a knee in the row and pulling a long thin box out from under the seat. Everything suddenly went very quiet in David’s head. He couldn’t hear anything except a soft whirring and the thumping of his own heart, and then Patrick opened the box, and the world came back into brilliant focus. 

“So. When I started this project, I wanted to remake myself. I’d spent so much of my life trying to push myself, and I never felt like it was working.” Patrick’s face was as bright as it had been the night David kissed him for the first time, and the memory curled itself around David’s heart and calmed him. “And then I met you. I knew from the beginning that this film was going to be something special, but I never could have guessed that it was going to change every aspect of my life. You have made me a better actor, a better man, and a better partner than I thought I was capable of being. I’ve seen you strong and I’ve seen you broken, and I love you every single way.” The crowd around them had slowly quieted, and David was vaguely aware of cameras snapping. “I’m so lucky that I have the story of falling in love with you captured on film, but before we watch it, this felt like the perfect time to ask you to marry me.”  
  
For a split second David wondered how pissed off Ronnie was going to be about the story of the engagement overshadowing the premiere. But that didn’t matter. The story didn’t matter, the premiere didn’t matter. What mattered was David standing up and pulling Patrick into his arms and feeling safer than he’d ever felt in his life. What mattered was Patrick whispering “is that a yes?” against his neck while David’s body decided between laughing and crying. What mattered was sliding those four perfect rings onto his fingers and hearing his future click into place. What mattered was holding his  _ fiancé’s _ hand when the lights in the theater dimmed and their names flashed across the screen, forever intertwined in this beautiful thing they’d created together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me to the end. This is my first chaptered work, and I so appreciate the lovely comments and encouragements I've received as I've figured out what the hell I'm doing here. 
> 
> The title of the film comes from the [Lord Byron poem "The Cornelian"](https://readytogoebooks.com/LB-c34.html), and specifically from this pair of lines:  
>  _"But he who seeks the flowers of truth,  
>  Must quit the garden for the field."_
> 
> It is very likely that I never would have finished this piece without the encouragement of the Rosebudd, and especially the hand-holding from this-is-not-nothing. Thank you for making me better and cheering me on.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are appreciated! 
> 
> find me on tumblr @thedidipickles and twitter @didipickles2


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